Snapshots
by LyricalKris
Summary: When his older brother walked out on his girlfriend, Bella, on the worst night of her life, Edward was there to pick up the pieces. Jasper breezed back into town after being missing for three years to find his family had reformed around the hole he left behind.
1. I'm Coming Home

**A/N: So when I did the Twilight 25, jfka06 reserved the right to request I write two stories from the prompts of her choosing. The first was Dig which I wrote as a Jasper/Edward. The second is this. Much love, and I hope you'll enjoy our journey.**

**Disclaimer: Still not Stephenie Meyer.**

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Edward Cullen hated small manila envelopes. Innocuous though they seemed, when he came home from work to find one in the mail or, worse, open on the end table in the entryway, his stomach twisted and anger clicked on like a snap from a lighter. They were small but thin as envelopes went. There wasn't much in them, after all. Their contents were always the same: a single photograph, beautiful in its composition, and terrible for the fury they always brought.

Perhaps most infuriating was the profound relief those envelopes brought. They were the only assurance Edward and his family got that his elder brother was still alive. His bitterness stemmed from the flipside of that coin, the reminder of why Jasper's mortality was a question in the first place. Each photo was a reminder of everything his brother had put his family through, and old, old anger settled like a rock in his gut. After everything Jasper had done, it should have been impossible to still love his brother, still care if he lived or died.

Often, in between envelopes, Edward wondered if it would be more merciful to receive a phone call or a police officer at the door in lieu of another photo. Then, at least, the wait would be over. They could all lay this unresolved portion of their lives to rest. They could all let Jasper go once and for all.

Bella could let him go.

That was the final reason Edward hated those envelopes. They were addressed not to him, but to Bella. His relationship with his wife was solid. They had a beautiful marriage, a beautiful life together. Bella's heart and soul were steadfastly his; he never doubted her devotion, but he hated how, when she held Jasper's photo in her hand, her every thought belonged to his brother, her ex-boyfriend. She had no secrets from Edward. He knew what she was thinking as she stared, her eyes haunted with old, painful memories. He knew how she second-guessed, how she still harbored such guilt. Had she done all she could? If she had been different, would Jasper have done what he did? Could she have saved him if only she'd tried harder?

Why had fate arranged it so Jasper was the one who met her first?

Edward took a deep breath and let it out. "Bella?"

She didn't answer, and Edward furrowed his brow. His stomach twinged with nerves. The house was too quiet. Bella wasn't responding, and he couldn't hear the sounds of Kaylee playing either. He quickened his step. "Kaylee? Bella?"

He didn't have to go far to find Bella. She was sitting at the table, staring off into space. Edward exhaled in a gust at the sight of her. "You scared me."

She started and blinked up at him as though coming out of a trance. "Hey. I didn't hear you."

"Where's Kaylee?"

"I took her to your mother."

Edward's stomach dropped down the soles of his shoes. Something was wrong.

What if it was finally the day? The day Edward had dreaded and yet, up until that very moment, he'd thought he was resigned to it.

Was his brother dead?

He swallowed the lump in his throat. "What happened?"

The horrible feeling in his gut only tightened when she didn't bother to play it down. In fact, she said nothing. Instead she waited until he sat kitty-corner to her at the table, and she slid a piece of paper in front of him.

By that point, Edward had worked himself up enough that he was surprised to see handwriting. He'd been expecting some official notice. In hindsight, it was a ridiculous thing to think. He'd seen the envelope with Jasper's writing. If his brother was dead, it would be something else-a phone call, or a visit from the police like on television-not a letter.

Edward's relief was short-lived. The very first line of Jasper's letter sent him into a tailspin.

_I'm coming home._

He pushed back from the table and stood, though he didn't know what he intended to do. His hands were in fists at his side. "No," he said.

Bella's eyebrows knitted and she reached out to take his hand. Her gentle tug had him back in his seat again. "Read all of it."

_Bella,_

_I'm coming home._

_I thought about staying away forever. How could any of you stand to look at me after what I did? But I've been running for a long time, and I'm done. You deserve to hear me say I'm sorry. You deserve an explanation. Honestly, Boo, you deserve the chance to kick me where it counts. I promise I won't stop you._

_If you don't want to see me, if you can't see me, I will understand and respect that. I just want you to know, I know I was really fucked up for a long time. I'm not the same guy anymore._

_Anyway. I have a few loose ends that need to be tied. I'll be home at the end of the month._

_I love you._

_Jay_

Edward's hand clenched in a fist, crumping the single page. In that moment, he hated his brother more than he thought was possible, and given what he'd seen Bella and Kaylee go through, his previous threshold was already high.

"He has no right," he said through clenched teeth.

"No right to what?"

"Anything, Bella. Three years he's been gone. Three years he sends nothing but those photos-no letters, no calls, no nothing-and now this?" Edward stood again and began to pace. "This is bullshit. He has no right to-"

"To what?" Bella stood and stepped into his path. Her eyes were tortured and her voice shook when she spoke. "He has no right to come home to his family?"

Edward put his hands to her waist, his grip tight, though not tight enough to hurt her. "You're _my_ family. You and Kaylee. _My_ wife. _My_ daughter."

She caught his face between her hands. "That's not what I meant. I meant you, your brother, and your parents. Kaylee and me? We're _yours_. That's not a question. No one is going to say any different."

"How do you know that?"

She didn't answer. He read the uncertainty in her expression. Jasper said he wanted to say he was sorry, but he didn't say what he expected to come home to. "He signed his letter love," Edward said. "As if he had a right to say he loves you after what he did. He walked out on you. He walked out on you on the worst day of your life."

"Edward." The word came out as a whimper that broke Edward's heart. His anger drained, replaced in an instant by shame. Bella was a wreck. He could see it in her eyes-the fear and uncertainty. He was making this about him, and that was the opposite of helpful.

"I'm sorry." He folded his arms around her and pulled her against his chest. She tucked her head under his chin. Under his hands, he felt a light tremor. Burying his nose against her hair, he took several deep breaths. He needed to take his cues from her, but he'd ruined that with his territorial snarling. "Please tell me what you're thinking."

Her breath hitched. "I don't know what to think. I love you. Nothing is going to change that, but I have no idea what I'm supposed to think or how to feel. I wanted him to come home. I've always wanted him to come home, but I never thought about what that meant."

Edward stroked his hand through her hair, swaying them both a bit. "So you'll hear him out?"

"I don't think I have a choice."

He wanted to argue, but he couldn't. There was no getting around the fact Jasper and Bella would have to talk. Jasper had said in his letter he would understand if Bella didn't want to see him, but that was an impossibility for so many reasons. She'd married his brother for one thing.

And then there was Kaylee.

"It's going to be okay," Edward said because she needed to hear it. "Whatever happens, I love you. I'm here for you."

"I know. I know that. You always have been."

He pulled back so he could take her face in his hands. He kissed her once. "We'll see what he has to say, but I need you to know right now… If it comes to it, I will fight for you. I'll fight for what's mine."

She put her hands over his against her cheeks. "You won't need to."

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**A/N: Many thanks to jfka06, barburella, and songster for everything they do for me.**

**This story will start updating regularly in the new year. Until then… thoughts? Worries? How we doing out there?**


	2. Where The Heart Is

**A/N: I loved reading your guys's reactions to the first chapter. Welp. Here we go. I'd say let's end the old year right, but I really don't know how y'all will react to this chapter.**

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Saturday mornings were Daddy-Kaylee time. Kaylee wasn't a morning person. How it happened that every Saturday morning she, like Edward, was up with the dawn, he couldn't say. She didn't want to be awake. Every time, she climbed into his arms so he could hold her while they watched the morning news. Kaylee was agreeable with just about anything the first few hours of the morning. When her brain kicked on, it was cartoons and Sesame Street all the way, but until then, all she wanted was her arms around Edward's neck and her head cradled against his chest.

Some days, Edward grew frustrated with his daughter. She was heavy and hot and he struggled to do anything when she was having a nap, not even have his morning cup of tea. Many times, he'd wished she would get over this phase soon enough.

That Saturday, Edward was ever so glad his daughter was so clingy.

Bella had fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion only an hour before the dawn. Until then, she hadn't been able to sleep at all. Neither of them could. There were too many questions they couldn't answer until Jasper made his reappearance. Edward watched his wife sleep, watched her brow furrow, and wished he could ease her dreams. Instead, he leaned down to press a long kiss against her forehead.

He slipped out of their bed, brushing the back of his knuckles down Bella's cheek before he headed down the hall to the nursery. The need to have his baby girl in his arms was too strong. It was near enough to dawn, after all. Kaylee, like every toddler, was very forgiving.

When he reached the nursery, he turned on the soft lights. The room glowed the color of the sunset, the low light bouncing off the red-orange walls of the room. The noose that had been tightening around his heart for hours in the darkness of the night loosened ever so slightly when he saw Kaylee. She was sprawled on her back, one hand up by her head, her lips pouted in sleep.

He sat on the edge of her big girl bed and peeled down her covers. When he lifted her up, she whimpered. "Shh, baby. I've got you. Daddy's got you."

Kaylee grumbled, instantly burying her head in the crook of his neck. Today her hot breath against his skin was a comfort. He rocked her for a moment before he stood and made his way downstairs to the the living room. There, he stretched out on the couch with Kaylee fast asleep atop him. He moved his hands over her back and twirled his finger in her long, blond hair.

Wavy blond hair.

People who didn't know any better assumed Kaylee's hair came from her Grandfather Carlisle, but in reality, the little girl was not blood related to him. Carlisle's hair was spun gold. Kaylee's hair was a shade or two darker, more sandy than gold. Like Carlisle's step-son, Edward's brother, Jasper.

Edward tried to take a deep breath, but he found he couldn't. He squeezed Kaylee as hard as he dared without waking her. He let his eyes close as he buried his nose in her hair, breathing her in.

Jasper was only her father by blood. This little girl was Edward's, and if his brother tried to challenge that…

Edward slumped. He had no idea what he would do. He knew enough about custody battles to understand if Jasper wanted her back, there was every chance he could get her. His blood burned hot at the idea.

Jasper had never deserved them, either of them, Kaylee or Bella.

_Edward was exhausted. It was two in the morning and he had just got off work after a full day of school. All he wanted was to get home and get in his nice warm bed. He groaned when he saw his brother's truck in the driveway. He parked on the side of the street and gripped the steering wheel, already gritting his teeth. "Here we go."_

_He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, searching for the patience he knew it was going to take. When he was sure he was calm, he got out of his car and headed up the walk._

_The house was quiet when he stepped in the door. Edward let out a breath. Maybe it was a non-drama night tonight. Jasper seemed to be doing better these last few times he'd showed up. His girlfriend, Bella, had been good for him._

_Bella was, in Edward's opinion, way too good for his druggie brother, but she hadn't figured that out yet. The on again, off again nature of their relationship was maddening to him. In a way, he understood. Jasper was charming and enigmatic when he wasn't using. Edward had seen how happy he could make her. The problem was he had also had to witness just how miserable his brother could make her._

_The simultaneous upside and misery of the whole situation was the friend he'd gained in Bella. It was wonderful because he'd never had a friend like Bella. She understood him. She was a lovely girl, a compassionate woman, and…_

_He was in love with her. That was the misery of it. He was in love with the woman Jasper had never had any business being with. She'd been eighteen and Jasper twenty-six when they met. He shouldn't have gone anywhere near her in the first place, but, somewhat bizarrely, Edward was desperately glad he had. He wouldn't have given up Bella for anything._

_Edward stowed his laptop bag by the door and trudged toward the kitchen. A glass of water and bed, that was all he wanted. He turned on the light and jumped a mile in the air. "Jesus Christ."_

"_However did you recognize me without my sandals?" Jasper flashed him a toothy grin. "How's it hanging, bro?"_

"_What are you doing here?"_

"_I live here."_

_Edward scoffed. "When it's convenient for you.""_

"_Whatever." Jasper waved the bottle of Jameson in his hand. The amber liquid sloshed noisily in the quietness of the house. "You want a drink?"_

"_It's two in the morning."_

_Jasper set a tumbler in the seat across from him and poured a drink. "Come on. Drink with me. We're celebrating."_

_Wary, Edward sat. He always felt so old when he interacted with Jasper, as if he was the elder. He was twenty-one-years-old and Jasper twenty-eight. He shouldn't have felt the need to take care of Jasper. "What are we celebrating?"_

_Jasper turned his glass in his hand, staring sightlessly. He huffed and his lip turned up at one corner. "I'm going to be a father." He punctuated his announcement by tossing back what was left in his tumbler down his throat and smacking his lips noisily._

_Edward blanched and blinked, sure he'd heard wrong. "What?"_

_Jasper set the glass down with a thunk. His lips quirked up and down, up and down, as though he couldn't decide whether or not he was supposed to be smiling. "Bella's pregnant."_

_Edward drank the entirety of the tumbler in front of him._

"_Say something," Jasper said._

"_What do you want me to say?"_

"_I dunno. Congratulations? You can do it?" He poured another bit of drink in his glass. "What the fuck were you thinking?"_

"_Alright, let's go with that. What the fuck were you thinking?"_

_Jasper rolled his eyes. "You really think we did this on purpose?"_

"_Great." Edward laughed without humor. "An unwanted baby is exactly what you need right now."_

"_Hey, I never said it was unwanted."_

"_You want a baby?"_

"_I don't know, man." Jasper moved the bottle back and forth across the table. The noise grated on Edward's nerves. "A baby. That's crazy, right? I want to want it. I want to be that guy who wants it."_

_Edward reached out and grabbed the bottle of Jameson away. "You want to be that guy? You think maybe you should lay off this shit?"_

_Jasper laughed. His grin was more goofy than anything. "You think booze is the biggest problem here?"_

"_Obviously not, but come on. The first thing you do when you find out you're going to be a dad is get trashed?"_

_Jasper scowled, but he pushed his half-full tumbler away. "Whatever." He wrung his hands together on the table. "I want to do this right. I know, I know. Don't give me that fucking look. I know I've said that before. It's true. I've always wanted to be better for Bella. I promised her. I promised her so many times." He swallowed hard and scrubbed at his eyes. "But this… I want to be a better dad than my dad. I want to be as good a dad as _**your**_ dad."_

"_Good luck with that." Jasper could never be as good a father as Carlisle._

_His elder brother looked up, his eyes so lost Edward's stomach twisted with guilt. "Edward, please. I know I've been a fuck up pretty much all your life. I… I need you. I need you and Mom, and Carlisle, and Emmett. You can't let me mess this one up. Not this."_

_Edward wanted to yell. Damn right Bella deserved better than him. Bile churned in his gut and raised to his throat. This would tie her to him forever. But done was done. Bella was pregnant. Even if Jasper didn't deserve his support, she did. He took a deep breath and let it back out. _

_He slapped Jasper on the back. "Congratulations. You're going to be a daddy. I'm here for you, Jazz."_

_The tension drained from Jasper's shoulder's. "Thank you."_

"Edward?"

Edward blinked, disoriented. Somewhere along the line, he'd fallen asleep. His chest was wet with sweat from where Kaylee's body lay atop his. His eyes focused to find Bella looking down on them. She gave him a teary smile and offered his hand. "Come on, baby. Come to bed with me. We're all tired."

He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. He hefted Kaylee in one arm. Bella rubbed her back and tugged Edward down the hallway to their room. They climbed back into bed and settled Kaylee between them. Edward kissed his daughter's forehead and raised his eyes to meet his wife's gaze. He reached out to cup her cheek, running his thumb over her full lips.

Would he have this woman, this life, if Jasper had never touched Bella's life? Did that mean Edward had to thank his brother for everything he had?

Edward tilted his head to kiss Bella over their daughter's head. He kept his thumb to her cheek, stroking her skin. She brought her hand up to rest on his side, sighing as she kissed him back. He fell asleep again, holding his family safe in his arms.

_**~0~**_

It had taken Jasper Whitlock entirely too long to understand one simple concept: Home was where the heart was. All his life, he had this sense of being lost, homeless though he'd always had a roof over his head.

The first five years of his life, Jasper's father Charles had moved him and his mother, Esme, all over the place. Esme left Charles under not-so-great circumstances, and as a result, they'd had to move a few times in the space of a year to keep out of his reach.

When they moved to Seattle, Esme had met and fallen in love with a widower, Carlisle Cullen, who had a son, Emmett, about Jasper's age. They stopped moving, and Carlisle helped Esme divorce Charles. They were married, and the baby of the family, Edward, was born not long afterward.

Jasper's story might have ended happily there. Carlisle was a doting father, and he didn't seem to care Jasper wasn't his biologically. He was stable and kind where Charles was erratic and harsh.

Unfortunately, despite the fact he didn't seem to like being a father and Esme told him repeatedly she didn't want child support, Charles sought custody of Jasper. It took Jasper years to understand his father had physically, verbally, and mentally abused his mother. But that kind of abuse was difficult to prove when she hadn't made a formal complaint, and so the courts had no reason to deny Charles partial custody. As a result, he spent summer months and vacations being shipped across the country to wherever his father had set up camp next.

It took Esme years to get him away from his father completely, and by then, it was too late. Jasper spent his late teens and twenties sleeping on couches, popping in on the folks only when necessity dictated.

Now, Jasper pulled up outside his parents' home and turned the engine off. A knot of emotion rose in his throat at the sight of the place. This house had seen his happiest times, though he'd been drowning too deep to see it in the moment. Despite his anxiety, Jasper felt a sense of peace settle over him.

Home was where the heart was. His home was with his family. His mother, the only man he should have acknowledged as a father, his brothers.

He swallowed hard and thought about Bella, wondering if she should be a part of that equation. He wasn't sure how to feel about her. Three years that felt like three lifetimes ago, he'd fancied himself in love with her. What he felt for her was positive, but love? Now, Jasper was uncertain. He didn't know if the man he'd been three years ago was even capable of loving another person.

He hoped again she would find it in her heart to see him, at least let him say he was sorry. It was a wish both selfish and altruistic. He wanted her to know the truth, but he also wanted closure for his own sake. He wanted to know what it would feel like to look into her eyes again, to know for certain what he'd lost.

With hindsight and the experience of the last three year, Jasper had the sneaking suspicion they'd been doomed from the first day, regardless of the mistake he'd made.

Part of him wanted to go straight to her house. He had, in fact, but only to assure himself she was still there. The house her parents had left her was just as he remembered it-perhaps a bit more maintained garden-wise. Her ancient truck, even more ancient now, sat off to the side, though a newer car took up the main space in the driveway.

He'd been shaking hard when he drove away from her house. He wanted to be brave, but he wasn't. One step at a time. Facing his parents, his mother, was terrifying enough. After what he'd cost Bella, well… Like he'd written to her, she deserved the chance to beat the hell out of him, and if she wanted it, he wasn't going to stop her.

So first, he was going to see if he was still welcome at the Cullen house. He got as far as opening the door and standing before his knees went weak. He caught himself on the top of the car and stared. He'd never been so intimidated by a short walkway in his entire life.

His fingers trembled as he fished his phone from his pocket. He dialed, and when Alice answered, he didn't bother to say hello. "I can't do this," he said instead.

"Yes, you can."

"They're going to hate me."

"They won't."

"I really can't do this. I'm a coward, but I can't."

"Jasper." Her tone carried just a hint of sharpness to it, enough to get his attention and calm him down, which he assumed was the point. "Think about how far you've come. Think about all the things you've done, what you've gone through this last year. You've worked so hard to get better. Do you think a coward could have done all you did?"

He bowed his head and tried to catch his breath.

"Answer me, Jasper Whitlock."

"No," he said both because he knew it was the answer she was looking for and he needed to hear it. "I'm not a coward."

"So are you going to go hug your mother, or am I going to have to get on a plane to come kick your ass?"

The idea of hugging his mother stoked a need so powerful in him, Jasper whimpered. "Okay. Okay, I'm going. Thank you, Ally."

"That's what I'm here for."

He disconnected the call and stared at the house again. Before he could coax his first foot forward, the door came open, and Jasper's heart skipped a beat. His breath caught in his throat.

His mother stood in the doorway.

For a handful of heartbeats, she didn't move, and Jasper was painfully sure she was about to step back inside and slam the door. She didn't. Instead, her hand went to her mouth, and she called his name.

That was all it took. Jasper sprinted up the walk, up the stairs, and into his mother's arms. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice raw with emotion. "Mom, Mom, Mom. I'm so sorry." He was babbling, and twin tears had escaped from either corner of his eyes. He knew he was hugging his mother too tightly, but he could hardly believe this was real. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Shhh. Shh, Jasper." Esme pulled back and took his face in her hands. She let out a cry when she got a good look. "Oh, my beautiful boy. Look at you. What's happened to you?"

"It doesn't…I'm sorry." He put his hand to her cheek, just marveling at being able to touch her again. "I'm sorry," he said, because those two words seemed to be the only ones he could remember.

Esme hushed him. "You're home now," she said, pressing up onto her tiptoes to kiss his forehead. "Everything's going to be okay."

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**A/N: So. That's Jasper. **

**Thanks so much to dizzygrl28 for stepping in to beta. I know I'm an impatient one. Thanks to songster, barburella, and jfka06 as well.**

**So. How are we feeling about… everything? Oh, and Merry New Year to you. Be safe tonight.**


	3. Brothers

**A/N: Dear anon (well, one of you. Don't worry, kids. You can sign in. I won't bite.) I never said Edward was Jasper's stepbrother. I said Carlisle was his stepfather. For the record: Esme is Jasper's biological mother, Carlisle is Emmett's biological father. Edward belongs to Carlisle and Esme making Emmett and Jasper his half-brothers and each other's stepbrothers. Phew!**

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Emmett came over alone, and Jasper was glad. He wanted a chance to talk to his family without Rosalie and the kid. Emmett's wife and Jasper had gotten along fine, but Jasper knew her well enough to be able to guess what she might think of what he'd done. As for Emmett himself, Jasper hadn't been able to guess how he would react. He was the kind of guy who let things roll off his back.

His stepbrother was what his counselors would have called an enabler. Whenever Jasper had an episode of drug-addled behavior, he laughed it off or excused it. After all, Emmett had his moments. He'd enjoyed his life to excess at times. Looking back, Jasper knew denial when he saw it. Emmett had never wanted to acknowledge there was a problem so no problem existed for him then.

But Jasper didn't understand how anyone in their right mind could forgive what he'd done. Esme was his mother. Her job was to love him unconditionally, and she was damn good at what she did. Emmett, Edward, Carlisle… they were all different stories.

Carlisle had greeted him with the same unconditional love and support Esme had. He was, as ever, a good father. Still, his parents didn't hide their worry. They had so many questions, most of which Jasper refused to answer until his brothers gathered. In turn, they had danced around answers to his questions for the exact same reason.

When Emmett arrived, he came in the door and stood stock still at the sight of him. Jasper held his breath, but then Emmett crossed the room and folded him into a hug. "You look like shit, bro," he said, slapping Jasper on the back. "What the fuck happened to your face?"

"I, um… It's good to see you too." He pulled back, and the look on his brother's face startled him.

Emmett seemed nervous, which was the first of many things Jasper didn't know how to deal with. If anyone had asked him before, Jasper would have said his big brother-elder by all of two months-didn't know how to look so worried, but there it was. "What's wrong," he said out of force of habit. He regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

"Oh, man. What the hell kind of question is that?" His tight smile fell completely. "I mean, what the fuck, Jasper? You have no idea…"

Jasper swallowed hard. His heart was beating frantically against his chest, but at the same time, there was some relief to Emmett's words. There was a part of him screaming in his head as his parents hugged him, clucked over him. He wanted to be yelled at. They all deserved to be pissed as hell. "Say what you want to say," he said.

Emmett huffed. "I don't even know where to start. It's bad enough you disappeared like that, but then what? You can't call?" He gestured at Esme. "Let your mom know you're not going to die? You can't even write."

"I did write."

"You sent bullshit photos to _Bella._"

"I knew she would share them with you."

"She shouldn't have had to."

Jasper bowed his head. "I know that. I do. I just… I didn't have the words. And I couldn't let Bella lose you too. She needed you guys. I don't know. I hoped it would be a bridge for you. Something like that."

"Why the hell would we need a bridge? Bella's my little sister; she always has been. You think we needed more incentive than her and Kaylee?"

"Kaylee?"

Realization dawned on Emmett's face. "Holy fuck…"

Jasper's heart dropped down to his toes. He stumbled backward, his whole body trembling so hard, he couldn't help but sit down on the couch. Hard. "She lived?" His voice shook. "My baby lived?"

"She's not your baby."

Dizzy as he felt, Jasper managed to raise his head. It was hard to breathe through the vice grip around his lungs. "Wait. What? Who's Kaylee then?" His thoughts spun. Of course he would have expected Bella to move on by now. If she'd had a baby with someone else, and his family still accepted her, it was still less than she deserved.

"You really don't know."

"I don't know anything, man." Jasper threaded his hands through his hair and tugged hard. He tugged until the acute pain made him breathe again. He hadn't wanted to do this until Edward was there, because he had no idea whether or not he could say it again. "I couldn't come back. If I came back, I knew I would have fucked up everyone's life. I have no idea what's happened to any of you these last three years. I don't know what happened after that night. I don't. I'm sorry."

"Christ." Emmett sat down in the armchair. Carlisle and Esme came to sit on either side of Jasper.

"And we have no idea what happened to you." Esme ran her fingertips over the scars on Jasper's face. She took his hand and pulled his arm toward her, shoving the sleeve of his shirt up to reveal more scars. Her eyes were tortured as she looked at him. "Where have you been that this happened to you?"

"I…" Jasper closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I'll tell you. I promise I'll tell you everything. Just… Can we wait for Edward?"

"You say that as if you expect him to care," Emmett muttered.

"What do you expect him to do?"

Emmett looked at Carlisle and Esme before he looked down on the ground. "He's pissed," was all he said.

"Yeah, well. I get that."

Emmett opened his mouth and closed it just as quickly. He narrowed his eyes. "Okay. If we can't ask about the Nightmare on Elm Street look you got going on, what the heck can we talk about?"

"Um." Jasper rubbed the back of his neck. "Well. How are Rose and Henry?"

"Rose is going to have your balls. Other than that, she's fine. Henry's in First Grade now, and he has a little sister. Her name is Vera. She's going to be two next month."

For the first time in the so far tense as hell night, Jasper smiled. "That's amazing. You with a baby girl, that's…" He wanted to joke with his brother, but he didn't know if he had the right. "Anyway. That's great. Do you-"

Jasper cut off when the door opened.

Edward had changed. It had only been three years, but there was something in the way he held himself that reminded Jasper of Carlisle. He seemed older than his twenty-five years. His little brother wasn't at all like Emmett. He'd never had much patience for Jasper's antics. Jasper remembered well his exasperated looks and his constant admonitions. Jasper had dared to let himself hope Edward's reaction to his homecoming would be the same: that disappointed and superior expression. He knew well how to deal with disdain. Instead, Edward's glare was all hostility and fury. It rolled off him, almost visible as heat undulating over pavement.

His little brother hated him; Jasper could see it in his eyes.

When he was in rehab, he'd witnessed countless confrontations between family and the other addicts. Many of them hadn't been pretty. He'd seen children, parents, brothers, sisters, wives, husbands with twisted faces screaming accusations and obscenities at their family members. And that was part of recovering, to hear those things, to accept responsibility for the fact his loved ones had every right to be angry, to hate him because he'd hurt every single one of them.

So though it was the last thing he wanted to do, Jasper stood up. He went to his brother and stood in front of him. "Say it."

"What do you want me to say?" Edward asked through clenched teeth.

"Whatever you want to. Anything. You're not going to hear me argue."

Edward only stood still, seething.

"Edward. Jasper. Come on. We should go sit down at the table," Carlisle said, his voice calm.

"If I move, I'm going to hit him," Edward bit out.

"You can. I swear I won't stop you."

Edward's nostrils flared, and he scoffed. "That's the same promise you made Bella."

"Yeah. I meant that too."

"How good of you."

"Look, Edward. I know Bella is your friend-"

"My _friend_?"

"He doesn't know," Emmett said, stepping up to his brothers. "He doesn't know anything. He thought Kaylee died."

Jasper sucked in a breath. His stomach churned and he looked to Emmett. "I thought you said-"

"I said she isn't your baby, and she's not. You walked away. You gave up the right to call her yours."

"She's alive? But… Thirty-one weeks. Bella was only thirty-one weeks. She was too little."

"Just under three pounds," Edward said, his voice still laced with venom. "But strong. She's strong and beautiful and fuck you for not wanting her."

"I wanted her." Jasper's voice was raw as the words tumbled out of him. It had never been about not wanting the baby. In fact, it was the opposite. All throughout Bella's pregnancy, he'd worried, he'd _known _he wasn't good enough. But then the accident, and he was sure his baby girl was dead. "Oh, my god." He sunk to his knees right there on the foyer. So many years of guilt. So much time wasted, time he didn't think his baby girl had. "Fuck. _Fuck." _He was so relieved he wanted to cry, and yet… "I always wanted her."

"Yeah. You wanted her so much, you walked away from her the second, the _second _she needed you."

"I was sick."

"You think that's a fucking excuse?"

"No." Jasper buried his face in his hands. "It's not. I know it's not. I just… Bella was hurt, and I… I couldn't face her. I couldn't be the one to tell her our baby was dead when it was my fault. I just couldn't do it."

"Jasper, what are you talking about?" Esme knelt in front of him and took his face in her hands, trying to get him to look up. "The other driver was at fault. He was going too fast. What do you mean it was your fault?"

"I should have seen him coming." Jasper shook his head back and forth, back and forth, the movement nonsensical. "I couldn't think that day. I was…" He swallowed hard. He knew damn well his mother knew what he was, but it didn't make saying the words in front of her any easier. "I was trying to quit cold turkey. I was just starting to go through withdrawals. I shouldn't have gotten behind the wheel at all like that. Fuck, I couldn't even think straight, and I was irritable. I was arguing with Bella. I never even saw the asshole, but I should have. I would have."

He'd gotten out of that accident with scratches and bruises. Bella's leg had been pinned between twisted metal. He still remembered in stunning detail the panic and pain in her voice the few minutes she was conscious. "It's too soon. Please help her. Please. Please don't let this happen," she begged Jasper before her eyes closed and her head drooped.

At the hospital, Jasper had been left climbing the walls alone until Edward showed up. The rest of the family was out of town, visiting friends in their old home town of Forks, so it was just Edward left to deal with Jasper's hysteria. By then, Jasper had worked himself into a state. It had been too long. Too long in a nightmare scenario, with an addict's mentality of escapism as a coping mechanism, Jasper was caught on the edge of a cliff. He knew he should have been the man who could be Bella's rock no matter what happened. He knew he should have been the man who could face what he'd done. But he knew how much Bella already loved their daughter, and how devastated she would be at the baby's death. Jasper was so grief-stricken he could scarcely breathe.

"I can't do it. I can't. I can't be here. I fucked it all up. I can't." He remembered babbling those words at his little brother before he stumbled and ran for the door. "I can't."

Jasper bowed his head so low, his forehead nearly touched the floor. He writhed with the utter disgust he felt for himself. Drenched in his own vomit, pee, and sweat one of the many times he tried detoxing on his own, he hadn't felt this low. "What the fuck did I do?"

"They needed you, and you were too much of a piece of shit to stay."

"Edward," Carlisle warned.

"No," Jasper said. He tried to sit up a little, but the weight on his shoulders may as well have been a thousand pounds. "Let him say it. He's right."

"Bella woke up and she asked for you. You and her baby, and I was the one who had to tell her you were gone. I was the one who had to tell her she couldn't see her baby because Kaylee was fighting for each breath. What were you doing then, Jasper? What was more important than that?"

Jasper couldn't answer. He remembered exactly the first thing he'd done when he ran from the hospital. While baby fought for life, while Bella was in so much pain, he was getting as high as he possibly could, trying to float above the whole situation.

"You're a fucking piece of trash, and I hate that I'm related to you. I hate that you're sitting there right now as if you belonged here. I don't get how Mom and Dad can stand to touch you after what you've done, after what you put them through. Fuck you for coming back. You could have had the courtesy to die alone in an alley with a needle in your arm."

Out of the corner of his eye, Jasper saw Carlisle wince at his youngest son's rant, and beside him, Esme gasped. Jasper wanted to tell them again it was only what he expected, what he deserved, but he couldn't speak. His lungs were shut up tight, a piece of paper crumpled into an unusable ball. Jasper struggled, but after a long minute, he was able to draw in a short breath. His mother rubbed his back, and her touch was more solace than he deserved, though her soft weeping pained him. He closed his eyes and raised his head, trying to get his thoughts to stop spinning.

Low as he felt, as much as his brother's words cut him to the bone, there was something that made it all worth it. "But she lived," he whispered.

Edward let out a ragged breath. "Yes."

Jasper panted and after another minute, he drew himself up straighter. His throat and mouth were bone dry. It took a few swallows before he could summon the volume to speak. "Can I see her? I mean… Do you have a picture? She's your niece, right? You must have a picture."

"Go to hell."

"Come on, Edward," Emmett said. "Mom has a million pictures."

Jasper forced himself to look up. He must have looked pathetic. There he was on his knees with his little brother towering over him, righteous as anything. His was the look of a man who was sure he could never sink as low as Jasper had, could never do the things Jasper had done.

Edward huffed out a breath and dug into his pocket. He pulled out his phone and pressed a few buttons. There was a sharp look in his eyes that Jasper couldn't read as he thrust the device in Jasper's face.

Jasper took the phone with shaking fingers. His breath caught as he looked at the photo, and he was struck by a one, two, three sucker punch of equally strong emotion.

First there was awe. The little girl in the photo was the most profoundly beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. She had his wide grin and his hair with Bella's eyes, nose, and coloring. Her eyes were bright, her hands up as she grabbed at the air and stared at the camera. She was whole and happy and perfect.

Second was the sense of rightness he felt for Bella. It hit him like a punch to his chest because it should have been him to put that smile on her face. The Bella in the photo was happy too. She held the baby girl firm on her lap on the couch of this living room. It was everything he'd wished for her - to be so happy with a baby in her arms and…

There was the last thing, the sucker punch to the gut that left him breathless and at a loss for what to think. In the picture, Bella leaned with her back against Edward's chest. His little brother had his arms around both of them, his smile proud and adoring as he looked on the girls. He was pressing a kiss to Bella's cheek.

Jasper's eyes darted to his brother, and for the first time, he saw the wedding band on his ring finger. He looked up, and he saw by the expression on his face that Edward knew what he'd seen. "She isn't my niece, asshole," he said. "She's my daughter, and fuck you if you think you're getting anywhere near either of them."

With those words, he snatched his phone back and he was out the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Jasper stuck somewhere between unjustified indignation and complete, mind-numbing shock.

* * *

**A/N: So. That went well. No bloodshed. *cough*. Anyway. **

**Many thanks to barburella and songster. I'd thank jfka06 but I was only supposed to write a little bit for her and finish the Foolish Hearts chapter. 3,000 words later…**

**We haven't heard much from Bella to this point. We'll get to hear from her next chappy. Promise.**


	4. Possession

**A/N: Wow. Quite a reaction last chapter. *holds hands* Let's talk to Edward and Bella now.**

* * *

When Edward got home, he pulled the car in the driveway and cut the engine. He kept his hands gripped around the steering wheel, his knuckles white with tension. He closed his eyes and breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth a few times. Adrenaline still burned in his blood. It was a strange energy, one that left him raw and grasping for something intangible.

He hadn't even been himself when he talked to his brother.

Part of Edward and Bella's mutual anxiety for the two weeks between Jasper's letter and the call Edward got from his mother saying he'd arrived was not knowing when their lives were going to change. Jasper was one big uncertainty, a force they couldn't control or predict. They'd both been on edge for those two weeks.

Still, when Edward went to his parents' house, he had every intention of being calm, rational. He and Bella had talked about whether or not she should come with him in even tones. Despite all that, the second he set foot in the door, laid eyes on his brother, he was a wild beast at the end of a rapidly fraying tether, all rage and feral instinct.

There was just so much. Seeing Jasper again had brought back every horrible memory. Bella looking so much younger than the twenty-year-old girl she was. Heartbreakingly young, lost, in pain. Back then the doctors hadn't known if she would lose her leg, if she would have to learn to walk again. The last thing, the very last thing, Edward wanted to do was hurt her. It went against his very being. That was the first time he hated, truly hated, his elder brother. When Bella asked for him, it was Edward who had to break her heart.

Then, from the very moment he'd seen her, Kaylee had owned Edward's heart. He'd watched her, painfully tiny and bird-like those first few weeks, and the idea that anyone could look at her and not understand how precious she was drove him to the edge of madness. He was there every minute he could be, not because he had to, but because it was a physical need. He _needed _to be close to Kaylee. He _needed _to be there for every milestone she hit, every update from every doctor. He _needed _to be with Bella, to hold her and comfort her, and just _be _there every minute. It was never a chore or a responsibility. And back then, they hadn't been his.

So when he'd seen Jasper, all of that, plus all the tears he'd seen his mother shed, the regret his father and brother had been through, all came to a head. Edward had not been in control of his body, let alone his mouth, at all.

Edward opened his eyes, his breath leaving him in a long sigh. He started when he realized the front door was open and his wife was standing in the doorway, their daughter on her hip.

The weight on Edward's shoulders lessened in an instant. His lip turned up.

His family. No matter what the future brought, Jasper couldn't change that.

_**~0~**_

"Daddy, Daddy, you missed one."

"What did I miss, sugar?"

Kaylee pouted and pointed in the direction of her dresser. "Mister Bubbles is scared."

Edward looked at Bella who was leaning in the doorway, watching them, and he raised an amused eyebrow. He stood and crossed to the dresser, picking up an oversized stuffed gorilla. "This guy is Mister Bubbles, right?"

"Ya huh."

"I see. And this big, buff gorilla is scared of…?"

"Sleeping alone." She held her arm out from where she lay on her bed. "He needs me, Daddy."

"Baby, you're not going to have room in your bed for you."

"He _needs_ me. He gets awful cranky if he can't sleep, an' he won't sleep if you leave him all alone in the dark." She lowered her voice to a stage whisper. "He'll cry."

"See, now how can I argue with that? It would be horrible to see such a big, strong gorilla cry." Edward brought the stuffed animal over to her bed and tucked it in with her. "All better now. Do you think little girls named Kaylee can sleep now that everyone is comfy?"

His baby girl grinned and threw her arms around his neck. "You're the best daddy, Daddy."

Edward enfolded his daughter in his arms and rocked her for a few beats longer than normal. A thrill of fear and possessiveness went through him. Bella's hand on his shoulder brought him back to the present. He laid Kaylee down and smoothed back her hair. "I love you, baby girl."

When he leaned down, she kissed him. "Love you, Daddy. Goodnight."

Bella came to sit on the other side of Kaylee's bed, careful of the myriad of stuffed and plastic toys. She leaned down for her goodnight kiss and hug. "I love you, baby bird."

"Love you, Mommy. Good night."

Edward stretched his hand out to take Bella's hand, and together, they walked to the bedroom door. They both lingered a few extra moments before Edward turned off the light.

Only when they were safe behind the door of their room did they stop. Edward turned to Bella, and she was already looping her arms tight around his neck. He held her close, so close he lifted her right off her feet. He stumbled a few steps forward with her in his arms, his lips possessive over hers, and pinned her up against the door. Bella's body was pliant under his. She ran her fingers up into his hair, pulling him closer. She hooked her bad leg up around his waist and pressed her body against his.

Only when he needed to breathe did Edward stop. He had to clear his head. He knew how much his brother's reappearance was playing into his actions right then. He had an urge, an insatiable itch, to possess Bella, to make visceral this knowledge in him she was his. He wanted to feel it on his skin as well as in his heart. She was his and he was hers, and he wanted to prove it with his hands, his mouth, his body.

But he didn't want to invite his brother into their bed. He didn't want it to be about that, about the only bit of control he had left in his spinning world. He tilted his forehead against hers and kissed the tip of her nose as he tried to catch his breath.

When he opened his eyes, he found hers on him. Such a warm, inviting brown. Alive, and when they looked at him or their daughter, adoring. Her look tamed that feral beast inside him, sated his need for ownership. He didn't own her and wouldn't want to. She chose to walk with him, and that was a gift he would never take for granted.

Bella took his face in her hands. Her thumbs stroked over his cheeks. They had so much to talk about, but when she began to kiss him, her lips soft and slow, he let his thoughts slip away. He got his arms around her, cupping her ass as he pulled her up against him. She walked him backward and pushed him to sit on the bed, leaning down to keep their lips attached as she stood in front of him.

Edward made quick work of her pants and his. Bella straddled him and raised her arms so he could peel her shirt off. His hands were on her body, running up her side. As always, she felt incredible under his fingertips. How well he knew this body, how well he knew her. He dipped his head to take her nipple in his mouth. The way she whimpered was at once familiar and titillating. He knew how to stroke her, how to coax the hoarse cry of his name to tumble from her lips.

And Bella, in turn, knew him inside and out. She knew how he liked the scratch of her nails down his back. She knew how to touch him, how to get him hot and hard. She could make it last minutes or draw it out until he begged.

That night they seemed to be on the same page. He wanted to be inside her. He needed it with a desperation that crawled on his skin. It wasn't about ownership but consumption. He wanted to drown in her, with her- to forget anything outside this perfect union existed.

When she slipped down onto him, her arms around his neck and his around her body, he was home.

Bella tilted her head back so he could kiss her neck. She cupped his face in her hands, bringing his head up so she could swallow his pants and moans.

When he felt her begin to tighten around him, Edward rested his head on her shoulder. He quickened his pace, his hands digging into her hips. "Love you," she said against his lips. Her words, her breathless voice, shot straight through him, and he felt the coil of orgasm wind tighter.

He pressed his hand over her mouth to muffle the sound of her cries as she spasmed around him, and she kissed him to muffle his when he followed her.

They stilled while they caught their breath, arms lazy where they fell, hers on his shoulders and his wrapped around her. He swayed them both back and forth a moment before he raised his head to look at her.

The look in her eyes was a reflection of his own thoughts. They needed to talk.

Still, they were both quiet as they got to their feet. Bella winced, favoring her left leg as usual. Her residual pain and the limp he'd long since gotten used to brought back a shadow of the maelstrom of his thoughts earlier that evening. As they got into their night clothes, he tried to find words for his fears and his anger. He had complex feelings about his brother's return.

Finally, when they were both in bed curled under the covers, lying side by side looking at each other, Edward was ready to speak.

"Do you hate him for everything he did to you?"

Bella pressed her lips together and studied him hard for a long moment before she answered. "No."

Edward chuffed.

"It doesn't mean I'm not angry or that I forgive him. It doesn't mean I like the idea of letting him anywhere near Kaylee. The idea that he could hurt her like he hurt everyone else...I'd kill him myself before I let that happen. But no. I don't hate him. How could I after what happened with my dad?

"My dad should have been there to take care of me instead of the other way around. He should have. It sucks that he wasn't. It absolutely isn't fair, but at the same time, I know how much he wanted to be. He tried. He failed, but he tried. In the end his demons won. They robbed him of a life he wanted to live, a person he wanted to be. I mean, I saw that he fought. He fought hard and he fought alone. He still lost.

"Then, when I met Jasper, I was a stupid, eighteen-year-old kid who thought she could make up for not saving her father by saving this beautiful, damaged man."

"You weren't stupid," Edward said, his voice fervent.

Bella cupped her hand against his cheek. "I recognized his demons. That was what attracted me to him in the first place. I didn't run away from them. I ran right for them."

"But he-"

She put her finger to his lips. "I think my point is, what I had with Jasper was never about us. It was me fulfilling a need in an unhealthy way. And I kept coming back, Edward. I would reach my limit and walk away from him, and then I would just go right back thinking this time, this time we would do it. We would conquer his addiction together." Her voice wavered. "I wanted to help him so badly." She sighed. "But do you see? I made some very poor choices because my past left me with a hole inside myself I couldn't figure out how to fill. My thing was Jasper. His thing was drugs. How can I hate him when I know he just made a different mistake than I did? How can I hate him when I know it would have taken just a twist of circumstance for me to fill that hole with alcohol like my father or drugs like Jasper? I don't hate him, and I'm not going to waste my energy on that when it won't help us." She brushed her thumbs over his his cheeks. "And how can I hate him when I have you and Kaylee because I had him?"

Edward's lips quirked. He hated that he had his brother to thank for his family. It was one of life's cruel ironies.

Bella's eyes, as she looked on him then, were pleading. "The Jasper I knew didn't _want _to hurt me or Kaylee. What does he want now?"

Edward took a deep breath, guilt stirring in the pit of his stomach. "I don't know."

He told her about what had happened at his parents' house, the things he had said and what little he gave Jasper the chance to say. Her expression was contemplative as he spoke, and he couldn't read what she might have thought of about the whole scene.

"I've thought about that a lot...what I would say to him if I saw him again," Bella said. Her lips tugged down, and he could see the worry on her face. "I guess I'll find out."

Edward bristled. "I don't want you anywhere near him."

Bella raised her eyes to his. "I know you don't."

She didn't say that she wouldn't go, and really, he hadn't expected her to. He closed his eyes and counted to ten before he tried again. "Can I come with you when you see him?"

"I _need_ you there with me." She ran her fingers along his cheek, down to his chin. "But we need to be the rational ones. We need to listen without screaming."

"That's asking a lot." Edward pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth. Even imagining his brother's face in his mind sent a rush of boiling hot rage through him. "I suppose I can't punch him either."

The side of her lip lifted ever so slightly. "Think of your mother."

Edward ducked his head. "You're right. Of course you're right. That was one of the things I could never stand about Jasper. He made Mom cry. But tonight, I was the one who did that. I made her anything but proud."

"You make her proud every day."

Edward brushed his nose with hers. "Okay. We'll go tomorrow and we'll listen. " He furrowed his eyebrows. "But if he hurts you or Kaylee, I reserve the right to kill him."

"We both will. Together. I won't make my mother's mistake either. I won't let Kaylee's life be tainted by his disease."

_"We _won't. "

"We." She twisted the wedding band on his finger. "Our life is about to change, but we'll get through it together. Partners, remember.?"

He kissed her soundly. "Always."

* * *

**A/N: Nothing like a little sex to calm ya down, right? :) Many thanks to songster, jfka06, and barburella. **

**Shout out to my San Diego girls. MWAH. Had a lovey time last night. **

**A little calm before the storm maybe? Hmm. We'll find out.**


	5. Rock Bottom

**A/N: Okay, friends. Who's ready for this? Not Jasper, I'll tell you that much. *holds your hand***

* * *

Jasper couldn't remember the last time he'd really slept. Since he'd written the letter to Bella telling her he was coming home two and a half weeks ago, he'd slept fitfully at best and last night not at all.

Alice had been an angel about everything, as usual. She'd stayed on the phone with him for three hours, letting him ramble-god, he hadn't made even a little bit of sense at first-talking him off a ledge.

His body still remembered the sweet relief using would bring. Relief from this debilitating guilt, the overwhelming sensation that he'd done too much wrong. There was too much that needed to be fixed, and dammit, how did people deal with this kind of stress without wishing it all away?

When the first light of dawn started to creep across the sky, he got up and went for a run. He ran until his lungs felt raw and his muscles screamed. He ran until his stomach churned, and he very nearly lost whatever bile had accumulated in his empty stomach. He jogged back to his parents' house at a slower pace.

Once he was back, he showered. He turned the water up to scalding in an attempt to burn away the feeling that had settled on his skin. Filthy. He was filthy with it, and it was too much. It was as though he was carrying everyone's emotions in his head, in his heart-each of them a separate weight on his chest. Edward's fury. Emmett's wariness. His parents' sadness and disappointment.

He showered until the water ran cold.

When he was dressed again, he wandered into the kitchen and cleaned every dish in the sink by hand. Exhausted, he sank down in a chair at the table and laid his head in his arms, breathing in the scent of his own clean skin and trying not to think.

In therapy, he'd been taught many coping mechanisms. One of the first tenets of addiction was to acknowledge cravings were normal. They were part of the reality of being an addict. He knew they would pass if he could only breathe through it. And that was part of the problem here. One of the best ways to stop craving was to run away-remove himself from the triggering situation.

This whole house, his family, they were one big trigger.

Jasper stretched one hand out and flexed his fist. He was trembling. Shaking with need. His throat was closing and the vice grip around his lungs tightening. Unbearable. There was no way he could get through this without-

A creak from upstairs made Jasper gasp. He was disoriented briefly until he remembered where he was. He straightened up, trying to steady his breath. He rubbed his temples, trying to ease the tension there. By the time the footsteps fell on the stairs, he was still shaking, but at least he wasn't hyperventilating.

Carlisle's sigh of relief drew his attention. "Oh, good. You're here."

Jasper raised his head. "Did you expect me not to be?"

His stepfather's face said it all, and Jasper put his head back down on the table. "I guess that's a really stupid question."

"You weren't in your room…"

"I get it."

"It's just if your mother has to lose you-"

"I said I get it."

With his cheek resting against the tabletop, Jasper couldn't see Carlisle. He heard him step closer and heard the scrape of the chair against wood flooring when he pulled out the seat across from him.

"Are you okay, son?"

Jasper laughed. The sound was vaguely maniacal.

"I meant to say you're shaking," Carlisle said, ever patient. "And you're very pale."

Jasper straightened up again though he still didn't look at his stepfather. "Craving. It'll pass." He took a deep breath and hurried on before he could think about what a big lie that was. "Are you sure it wouldn't be better for everyone if I just disappeared?"

Carlisle was silent for a full five seconds. "Are you asking me that seriously?"

"No. Yes." Jasper flexed his fists in quick, sporadic motions. "I know it wouldn't be good for Mom, but Kaylee…" His breath cut off in a huff at his daughter's name.

His daughter. He had a three-year-old daughter.

There was the scraping sound again, and when Jasper glanced up, he saw that Carlisle was rummaging through the junk drawer. He walked back to the table and pressed something squishy into Jasper's hand.

A stress doll. Jasper squeezed it, watching the eyes bulge out.

"It wouldn't be good for me either," Carlisle said, his tone soft.

"What?"

"If you disappeared again. It wouldn't be good for me. It would hurt me a lot. It did hurt me a lot."

Jasper stared down at the doll. Squeeze, bulge. Squeeze, bulge.

"I've never thought of you as my stepson, Jasper. I still don't. As far as I'm concerned, I have three sons."

Once, back in the clinic he'd lived at for several weeks, Jasper had come back to his room to find his roommate sobbing. Peter was the tough-as-nails type. He thought to show emotion was to show weakness, yet there he was, crying like a baby.

"_My girl, man. Charlotte. Jesus God, I did such fucked up shit to her. She said today she still loves me and…" His breath hitched. "And she forgave me. She _forgave_ me. Why? I'm a piece of shit, man. Why would she do that?" He punched at his mattress. "And why does it hurt? It _hurts._"_

Jasper's eyes stung, and his throat closed with a very different kind of emotion. It hurt. It was a pain deep in his chest.

Love was physically painful to those who didn't think they deserved it.

"I, um…" Jasper's voice was thin with tears he didn't want to shed. He sniffed hard and squeezed the hell out of the stress doll. "Kaylee… I mean, Edward and Bella… She has a mommy and daddy, you know? Me being here… doesn't it just fuck everything up for her? Wouldn't it be better for her if I didn't exist?"

"But you do exist. That can't be undone." Carlisle tilted his head, and Jasper wondered how he could talk about this so rationally. "What did you think was going to happen if you never came back? What do you think is going to happen if you run off again? Do you think Kaylee would never know about you? You're still Edward and Emmett's brother, my and Esme's son. You exist, Jasper. Even if you weren't here to explain it all to her one day, you'd still exist."

"Yeah." Squeeze, bulge. Squeeze bulge. "I know. I know that." Leaving the first time had been cowardice. He could try to justify leaving again all he wanted, make it sound as altruistic as he could, and it would still be cowardice made worse by the fact he tried to come home at all. He took a deep breath and forced himself to look Carlisle in the eyes. "I'm not going to leave again. You have my word. I know that's probably next to worthless, but it's all I have."

Carlisle offered his hand. "I'll take it."

Jasper blinked at him, too shocked to move at first. He stared at his hand, not quite able to make his brain connect the dots. Slowly, he put his hand in Carlisle's, and they shook.

"I'm holding you to that," Carlisle said.

Jasper allowed himself one small smile. "Yes, sir."

"Good. Let's talk about your long term plans then."

_**~0~**_

Edward called Carlisle mid-morning to ask if he and Bella could come over that afternoon. That left Jasper three hours to wear a hole in his mother's carpet as he paced the length of the living room. Esme tried several times to get him to eat, but he couldn't.

"_Starting over isn't supposed to be easy," _Alice had told him the night before.

When Edward and Bella pulled up, Esme and Carlisle had to leave. That was the deal Edward made. He and Bella would talk if Esme and Carlisle took Kaylee somewhere far away from Jasper. Not that Jasper could blame them.

Esme kissed his cheek and hugged him tightly. She looked like she wanted to say something, but there was nothing to be said. None of them knew what their near future looked like, and that was Jasper's fault. He knew the position he was putting his parents in. They loved and supported their sons unconditionally. Who were they supposed to support when one son wanted the exact opposite of the other?

"We love you," Esme said.

Weak as it was, Jasper smiled. "I know, Mom."

He hugged his mother one more time, and when Carlisle clasped his shoulder in a show of silent support, he hugged him, too. His parents both looked apologetic as they slipped out the door, closing it and leaving Jasper behind.

Jasper tried to make himself go wait by the couch, but in the end, he stepped over to the window. He crooked one finger around the curtain and pulled it back, sneaking a peek at the scene in the driveway.

His eyes found Edward first. He was standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his posture protective. Jasper wanted to feel proud of his little brother. He was a grown man with a family. Good job too, Carlisle had told him the night before. Right after graduation. They were paying for him to get his Master's, so he was juggling work, school, and being a daddy.

If anyone could excel at all of it, it was Edward.

Of course, Jasper would have recognized the small form beside him anywhere. Bella too had changed. She was doing well on her own. With Edward and his family to help with Kaylee, she'd finished school. Her job was decent enough and the house she and Edward lived in was hers free and clear - the only gift her father could give her.

She'd been twenty when Jasper took off. At twenty-three, she still looked painfully young. What in the hell had he thought he was doing being with her in the first place? He'd known she was good and pure when they met. She reminded him so much of his mother, only she didn't look at him with guilt in her eyes the way Esme did. Yet she had her own darkness. Alone in the world at eighteen with an absentee mother and a dead, alcoholic father. He'd liked that he could make her happy.

What happiness he gave her was fleeting.

Jasper saw the way she angled her body toward Edward and he toward her. As they talked to Carlisle and Esme, she touched Edward's arm and instantly some of the tension eased from his frame. He spared her a glance, a small smile, and took her hand.

Tense as they obviously were about meeting with him, Jasper could see they were happy. He squeezed his hands at his sides and gritted his teeth. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep. He knew he had no right to the anger that was bubbling up in his gut, but he was only human.

He'd always known his little brother had a thing for his girlfriend. Back then it had amused him. His baby brother with a schoolboy crush. Jasper hadn't been concerned. He was cocky enough back then he didn't stop to think he wasn't the better brother. He hadn't stopped to think Edward and Bella had much more in common. They were the same age, cared about the same things. When they were together, Edward didn't have to try to make her smile. He still remembered how they would talk for hours. It was cute, he'd thought.

But then, when he kept screwing up, Jasper started to get the feeling Edward thought he was better than him. He didn't make a secret that he thought Bella was too good for Jasper. He'd been right, but that didn't do anything to soothe Jasper's wounded ego.

When he came back home, he'd come knowing he couldn't have Bella back. He'd hoped she'd found a decent man who was good to her.

Why did it have to be his little brother?

Jasper swallowed down the thick lump in his throat reminding himself that Edward was like Bella. He was good, pure. He was everything she deserved, and human though it was, his indignation wasn't about anything tangible. Nothing had been stolen from him.

When he opened his eyes, Bella was leaning in the backseat of her car. Jasper caught a glimpse of small arms and blond hair. His breath left his body, and he had to spread his hand against the wall. He couldn't really see her, but the baby, his baby, was right there. Alive. Real.

Bella pulled back and Edward took her place. Jasper's heart twisted.

Not his baby.

He backed away from the window and waited.

It was only a few moments after he heard the car rev and back down the driveway that the front door opened.

They stared at each other for long enough Jasper thought he would go insane waiting for either one of them to speak or do something, but he'd sworn to himself he would let her react first.

He knew she was upset. Stiff posture, the hand she didn't have joined with Edward's twisting in her long shirt. But mostly, it was the tears in her eyes. He still knew enough about Bella to remember she cried when she was furious, and it rolled off her in waves then.

But after a long, tense minute, Bella sucked in a breath. "What happened to your face?" Her tone was clipped.

Jasper huffed, barely covering a shocked laugh. He'd imagined this reunion countless times, but he'd never imagined she'd start there. "I, um… Rock bottom."

"Rock bottom?"

"Yeah. I woke up in a hospital a little over a year ago with this." He gestured to the scars, a trio of them, on his face. "And, uh…" He pulled his shirt up to show the ugly scar at his side.

Even Edward gasped. Jasper looked up at his brother. "You almost got your wish."

Edward's cheek twitched. "I'm not going to apologize for what I said."

"I didn't ask you to." Jasper took a shaky breath, brushing off the sting of his brother's cruel words. He still got to ache, he thought, but now wasn't the time to acknowledge his own pain.

"What happened?" Bella asked.

Jasper looked down to his feet. He walked the few steps to the couch and dropped down on one end. "I wish I knew. I mean… I guess I know." He pulled his sleeves up to show a scattering of other scars. "I was… At that point I was living on the street, mostly." He wondered where Carlisle's stress doll had gotten to. He stared straight forward and dug his fingernails into his palm. "There were a lot of fights. I don't know. It made sense at the time, I guess. I don't remember the ones that almost killed me, but..." He shrugged.

"That's what it took for you to get clean? Almost dying?"

There was more to it than that. Even waking up half-dead in the hospital, Jasper counted the days until he could get back out there. What did he have to live for, after all? He cleared his throat. "Yeah."

He heard soft footfalls and he jumped when a thin album landed on the coffee table in front of him. He didn't look up. Small though she was in stature, for as low as he felt, Bella's presence standing over him was almost unbearably intimidating. It was enough to set his hands to shaking. He had the worst feeling he knew exactly what was in this album. He reached out to turn the first page.

Even though he'd been half expecting it, nothing could have prepared him for what he saw. A tiny baby, not pleasingly chubby or, at least, filled out like any newborn he'd ever seen. No. This baby was thin and scrawny. Her skin was the same paper thin quality of an old person's hand. Most heartbreakingly of all, she was covered, _covered, _in tubes and wires. She even had some kind of skull cap keeping a grotesque looking breathing tube in place.

Jasper's throat constricted. He put a hand to his mouth and pressed hard, as though he could contain the crushing emotion that rolled over him then. His heart pounded hard in his ears. He ran trembling fingertips over the still image, wishing with everything in him he could take that baby girl and make her better by will alone.

Off to his side, Bella took a shaky breath. "I need you to understand exactly what you walked away from. What you left me to deal with. And I need… I need to understand why she wasn't enough. Why was this not your rock bottom? If it had just been me, I get that, but why her? Why wasn't she a good enough reason to get clean?"

"She was. _You_ were. You were both worth it. I just…" Jasper couldn't continue. He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes tightly shut as tears overwhelmed him.

"No. You don't get to do that." Edward's words came out as a snarl. He shoved Jasper's shoulder. "You don't get to sit here all pathetic and pretend you're sorry."

Jasper stared at his brother. "I am sorry. I'm more sorry than I'll ever be able to say."

"Clearly. So sorry you're back here looking for sympathy, looking for-"

"I came back here to say I was sorry, to face what I did. To explain. To-"

"To what? Make amends?" The derision in his little brother's voice made Jasper clench his jaw. "This isn't a Lifetime movie special. There are no amends for this, and I think you know that. What do you really want here?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You think I buy this altruistic, kick-my-ass-if-you-want-to bullshit?" Edward shook his head, his eyes on fire now. "You're doing this for the same reason you've always done anything - for you. So what is it you want? You think if you say you're sorry, tell us some sad story about how it wasn't you, it was the addiction, you'll get to pick up where you left off with Bella and the baby?"

"That doesn't even make sense. I didn't know, okay? I came back here because I wanted my parents back. I wanted to be a son and a brother again. I didn't know you and Bella had…"

"So sorry to throw a wrench in your plans. I suppose it would be a lot more convenient if Bella and Kaylee weren't here."

"I-"

"Okay!" Bella got between them, holding a palm out to each of them. "Edward, sit down."

"Bella-"

"Sit."

He huffed, but he sat. In another setting, it would have been hilarious. In another life, he might have teased his brother. In this reality, he glanced around for the damn stress doll because he was frustrated as all hell and heartbroken besides.

Bella sat next to Edward on the loveseat, her hand on his knee. "Jasper, I want to listen to you. I really do. But right now, there's only one thing I want to know. I _need _to know before I can listen to anything."

"What's that?"

"What are your intentions toward Kaylee?"

Jasper scrubbed a hand over his aching eyes. "Ah, hell. I don't know. What I was trying to say earlier was I didn't realize when I came back there'd be any reason for you to see me." He wrung his hands. "I didn't think she survived; how could I have figured you'd married my brother? I just didn't know you'd have to… deal with me."

"What are you saying?"

"I don't know." He breathed in and out slowly. "I know I'm not fit to be anyone's father if that's what you're asking." He squeezed his fingers so tight it hurt. "I know I don't deserve to be her father."

"You aren't her father," Edward said through gritted teeth.

Jasper winced. "Yeah. But that being said, I'm also not going anywhere."

Edward scoffed. "Right."

Jasper spread his hands wide. "I'm here to stay. There's a lot I have to figure out, but I'm not leaving again. Not ever. Not like that. So I guess that means we're going to have to figure out how to deal with each other."

The room fell silent at that. Jasper could only deal with the quiet for a few seconds before he hurried on. "As far as Kaylee, I'll play by your rules. I...I want to meet her. I want to know her."

More silence. He could tell they didn't like it, but they weren't arguing either. Under the circumstances, he'd take it.

He had so many questions. He wanted to ask Bella about her leg. He wanted to know about her life and Kaylee's and everything he'd missed. He wanted to know if she thought she would ever be able to get to a place where she could forgive him. None of his questions were fair right then, and so he kept his mouth shut when Bella said she needed time to think.

"Dinner. After work. We'll come for dinner," she said.

Jasper bit his tongue to keep from asking if she would bring Kaylee. He would find out. "Yeah. Whatever. Whenever you need."

He sat still, watching them as they got up. A few seconds after they left, he realized they'd forgotten the album of Kaylee's first pictures. He debated only a moment before he darted after them.

"Give it back to me at dinner," Bella said, and the look in her eyes was clear. She wanted him to know beyond a shadow of a doubt what he left her to face alone. Sick as the idea made him, he understood. That was what this part was all about-truly understanding what he'd done and how it made his loved ones feel.

"Bella." She turned to him, and Jasper swallowed hard. "Kaylee… Did she… After all that, is she okay now?"

Bella gave him a small, sad smile. "She's just fine. A touch of asthma."

Jasper could have sagged to the ground he was so relieved. "Good. That's good."

Edward tugged her hand then, and Bella let him pull her away. When Jasper waved as they backed down the drive, his little brother studiously ignored him.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to barburella, jfka06, and jessypt for always thoughtful conversations. Oh, my docs are a lovely place. I love a good discussion.**

**Send good thoughts in songster's direction for me, yeah? Much love. **

**Okay. So. How are we all doing? Thoughts? Fears? Jasper check?**


	6. New Normal

**A/N: Two smaller chapters instead of one larger one… but onward!**

* * *

It was surreal how normality snapped back like a rubber band when Carlisle and Esme brought Kaylee home. One minute they were both tense, both still shaken and uncertain, the next Kaylee was bounding through the door with a smile on her face as though nothing was wrong. In her little world, nothing was wrong. She'd had a lovely couple of hours out with her beloved grandparents. She dragged a reusable shopping bag full of goodies behind her as she scampered in their direction, and it likely didn't enter into her conscious thought at all that her parents had done anything in her absence.

"Daddy. Mommy. Look. Grandma and Grandpa bought me things!"

"Grandma and Grandpa bought you more things? Well, imagine my unending surprise," Edward said as he scooped his daughter up into his arms. "Grandma and Grandpa never get you things."

Kaylee giggled, a high pitched, sweet sound that lit Edward's world from the inside out. "You silly, Daddy. They get me things all the time."

"Oh, right. Right. Those grandparents." He peppered Kaylee's face with kisses until she giggled again. "Hmm. You taste like ice cream." Holding her at arm's length, he clucked. "Sugar, you're all sticky. Why don't you ask Mommy to help you change, hmm? I need to talk to Grandma and Grandpa."

"Okay." Kaylee reached her arms out for her mother.

Bella shifted Kaylee easily to one hip and reached a hand out to caress Edward's cheek-her quiet reminder they were on the same team even though the discussion between them had been heated. "Hold on tight to your new treasures, baby bird."

Watching his wife and daughter disappear upstairs, Edward thought back to a time when they weren't his.

_Between her injuries and Kaylee's condition, Bella hadn't been able to see the baby with her own eyes for three days after her birth. She hadn't been able to hold the tiny girl, but now, five days later, it was finally time. Bella was practically vibrating with nerves and eagerness. Edward, sitting in his now customary spot by her bedside, reached out automatically to squeeze her arm. It wasn't the first time he'd touched her so casually, but Edward was aware of his mother's sharp eyes following his hand. Edward shifted in his seat and drew his hand back, twisting his fingers instead in the edge of Bella's blanket._

"_Same as before, you'll be able to bring one person with you," the doctor said._

_Bella took a deep breath. "Okay." She glanced around the room, but her eyes lingered on his. "Edward. Will you come with me?"_

_Edward's heart skipped a beat. He'd fully expected her to ask his mother. "Is that what you want?"_

"_Yeah." Emotional as she was, her voice shook when she spoke. She looked again at Carlisle and Esme, her glance furtive. "I'm sorry. I wish I could take all of you, but-"_

"_It's okay, sweetheart," Carlisle said. He stepped to her side and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. "Whatever you need. There's time for the rest of us."_

"_Time," she repeated and sniffled._

_Ignoring his mother's sharp gaze, Edward found Bella's hand and twined their fingers together. "She's doing well, Bella. She'll be fine. I'll go. Of course I'll go with you."_

_Her smile was watery._

"_We're ready then?" the doctor asked._

_Bella sniffled again and nodded._

_A trio of nurses and orderlies came forward then to help Bella out of her bed and into a wheelchair. Edward wasn't at all surprised when his mother pulled him to the furthest corner of the room._

"_Edward, I know you're very upset at your brother. We all are, but he'll be back soon."_

"_Oh, I hope he comes back," Edward said through gritted teeth. He was careful to keep his tone low and even. His fingers flexed at his side. "I have a few things I want to say to him."_

_Esme sighed. "What I'm trying to say is, there's a lot of wrong in this whole situation. Be careful not to add to it."_

"_What are you talking about?"_

"_I know Bella is your friend, and you're hurting for her. She's very vulnerable right now-"_

"_No kidding. And whose fault is that?"_

"_No one is downplaying Jasper's part in this. Still, be careful you don't overstep your boundaries." Esme wrapped her fingers around his wrist, her tone still gentle. "Do you understand what I'm saying?"_

_There was a lot Edward could have said. He wanted to deny her subtle accusation outright, but he couldn't. His mother knew him too well. As far as Edward was concerned, Jasper shouldn't have the right to call Bella or the baby his, but that didn't mean they were Edward's by default._

_He jerked his head in a nod at his mother. "I would never push her, and I'm not trying to confuse her. She needs all our support right now, and if she wants me with her, I'm not going to argue with that. I'm not leaving her side until she orders me away."_

_Esme brushed her fingers through his hair. "I know. I know you wouldn't hurt her on purpose. Just be careful, Edward. This is such a complicated situation."_

"_Coming, Edward?" the nurse asked._

_Edward looked away from his mother over to where Bella watched him with an anxious expression. He pushed away everything else in his head and smiled a reassuring smile. "Of course," he said as he stepped to her side._

Edward shook off the memory as he turned to his parents in the present time. They didn't say a word at first. His mother hugged him, and when she let go, his father followed suit. Edward hugged them both back just as fiercely, swallowing down the thickness in his throat as he stepped back. "I need to know." His voice rasped as he spoke, and he couldn't bring himself to look them in the eyes. "I really need to know now. If it came to a fight. If Jasper tried to get his rights to Kaylee back, whose side would you be on?"

Esme gasped, but it was Carlisle who spoke. "Is that what Jasper decided? Is that what he really wants?"

"No." Edward grimaced. "No. He said he doesn't know what he wants except he wants to meet her. But you know what the lawyer said. Under the circumstances he left, if he didn't know the baby survived, he has a chance to get her back." He forced himself to look his parents in the eyes. "And if he had our lawyers-_your_ lawyers, your support-he'd have a damn good chance."

"But he hasn't said he wouldn't do that," Esme said.

"No, Mom, but I need to know. I need to know now. Who would you choose? Me or him?"

"Edward. Don't raise your voice at your mother," his father admonished.

Edward closed his eyes and took a step backward, forcing himself to take a deep breath. "I'm sorry. That was out of line. I just…"

"Come on. Let's all sit down." Carlisle put his arm around his wife and gestured that Edward should lead the way to the living room. "Then you can tell us what happened from the beginning."

He had just finished summing up their conversation with Jasper when Bella came back downstairs without Kaylee. "I put on _The Little Mermaid_," she said by way of explanation.

Kaylee would be mesmerized for an hour and a half. The would likely have to put up with her singing for days on end, but she was adequately distracted.

"Regardless of Jasper's intentions, he's right about one thing," Carlisle said. "He's home for good now, and you're going to have to learn how to deal with each other amicably."

Edward laughed, a sound entirely without humor. "So you believe him. You think he's actually going to stick around this time?"

"He wasn't prone to disappearing before. He's only done it the one time," Esme said.

"For three years." Edward closed his eyes and took a deep breath, forcing himself to lower his voice lest he draw Kaylee's attention. "And dependable wasn't exactly on his list of defining characteristics before that."

"What would you have us do?" Carlisle asked. "He asked to stay with us. He asked for our support."

"And you gave it, no questions asked."

"On the contrary, we asked a lot of questions. He gave me, he gave both of us, his word he wouldn't leave again."

"Okay, so he gets to stay. Great. But what about the other thing? The thing none of us is even talking about?"

His father knew where he was going. "He's clean now. That I believe absolutely."

"Now, sure. Everytime he swore he'd get clean, that he'd stay clean,you always believed him; we all did, and he let us down every time. Every single time."

"Edward." Carlisle put both his hands on Edward's shoulders and looked him square in the eyes. "None of us has the luxury of denial anymore. Jasper is going to stumble. He's going to mess up somewhere along the line. And yes, ultimately, he might fail, but I'm not going to expect it to happen. He needs us."

"Tough."

"It's your choice whether or not you can be part of your brother's support system." Carlisle looked to Bella. "You both have the most reason not to forgive him. But he's a part of _our _family." He gestured between himself and Esme. "He is welcome in our home as long as he's on the straight and narrow. I would hope you can at least listen to him tomorrow night, hear him out, before you make a decision that will affect how all of us can interact."

"And if he decides he wants to play daddy?"

This time it was his mother who answered. She reached past Carlisle to put her hand on Edward's knee. "I honestly don't think it will come to a fight. Your brother was a lot of disappointing things, but he's never been cruel. If you can find it in your heart to listen, I think you'll see he's struggling to start all over. He doesn't know where he fits with us anymore. He's not going to want to upset Kaylee's life."

On his other side, Bella took his hand. "We agreed to listen."

"_You_ agreed to listen," Edward said.

Bella fixed him with a cool stare. "We've talked about this already. There's no point in jumping to conclusions. I'll hear him out even if you won't. If you're so sure he's going to fail, I'd rather let him build his own fire. What's the point of antagonizing him? What's the point of _us _making it ugly?"

Edward pushed to his feet and began to pace. "You're all so ready to forgive him."

"No. I know I'm not. I'm nowhere close to forgiving him, and I think you know that," Bella said.

"But you want to."

"It's a long way off, but I would prefer it, yes."

Edward shook his head. "Well, I would prefer he went the hell away."

"You don't mean that," Esme said. She sounded heartbroken. As much as Edward hated being the one to put that hurt in her voice, he was also too angry to apologize. "He's still your brother."

"I don't get a choice in that."

"It's the control, isn't it?" Carlisle's tone was still even, calm, though he rubbed Esme's shoulder as he spoke. "It's never comfortable when something is out of your control, and it's all the more terrifying when there's a child involved. Edward, I hope it goes without saying that you have your mother and my full support. No matter what happens, this is never going to be about you versus Jasper. You're Kaylee's father. That's not something Jasper can erase any more than you can erase her biology."

"Think about what you're wishing for, if not for you then for your parents," Bella said. "Jasper is their baby. What if it was Kaylee? What if we lost her and then we got her back?"

Anger and terror chased themselves down Edward's spine. Losing Kaylee was exactly what he was so afraid of. "_Our _baby is an innocent."

"But she won't always be."

Edward opened his mouth and shut it just as quickly.

"You can't imagine what a struggle it's been to have him back," Esme said. "Even right now, sitting here with you, I'm terrified we're going to go home and find him gone. I don't trust him, Edward. I don't trust my own son. There are so many answers I need, and I want all of them right now. But sweetheart, it's only been a couple of days. Less. None of us really knows what we're doing.

"What I do know is I love you. You, Bella, Kaylee. I love Jasper, too." She sniffled and reached for him. Edward stopped his pacing and held her hand, squeezing probably too tightly. "Our family has always been stronger together. We're going to be okay. Our normal is changing again, that's all." She brushed her thumb over his knuckles. "You remember the last time normal changed. It was so hard, but look how it all turned out."

Edward gave his mother an exasperated look, but his lips twitched upward. He sat down again and rubbed his tired eyes. "I hear you."

"I love you."

"I know, Mom. I love you, too."

"We're here for you. Do you hear that?" Carlisle asked.

Edward took another deep breath. "Yeah."

A new normal.

Edward considered the possibility after his parents left. He thought about it as he played with his little girl, helped Bella give her a bath, and then cuddled with his wife on the couch as they relaxed before the long work week ahead. He kissed the top of Bella's hair and sighed.

Before his brother reappeared, he and Bella were trying to decide if now was too soon to have another baby.

He liked the old normal just fine.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to jessypt and barburella. Jfka06 is my musette. She has caught the plague from me from thousands of miles away. Send get well thoughts toward her! And me too. *hack hack hack***

**Okay. Dinner next time. Promise.**


	7. Dinner

**A/N: I forgot to thank you all for voting for me in the fandom choice awards. What a great surprise and honor. I love my time here, and I'm glad you seem to enjoy it too.**

**For reference, the Serenity Prayer-used often in AA and NA and all that good jazz-goes as follows:**

_**God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,**_

_**The courage to change the things I can,**_

_**And wisdom to know the difference.**_

* * *

"Alice, why do you put up with me?"

"Oh, Jasper." On the other end of the phone, Alice sighed. "I don't think you're ready to talk about that yet. Don't try to change the subject. You have something on your mind. Talk."

She knew him so well.

Jasper blew out a long breath. He held his phone to one ear while he used his free hand to flip through the photo album Bella had given him for the millionth time. Reaching the end, he traced the last picture with the tip of his finger. It was the day Bella had finally been able to bring Kaylee home from the hospital. The baby girl in the picture was fast asleep in a crib Jasper had put together, in a nursery he'd helped Bella paint.

"You know how they say a man doesn't become a father until he sees his baby?" he asked Alice.

"Yeah."

"That's bullshit. At least, it was for me." He pulled the album up his body as he moved from a cross-legged position to lay down on the bed. He cradled the closed album to his chest as he spoke again. "From the minute Bella told me she was pregnant, I was a father."

Somewhere there were pictures of Bella with shy smiles, her hands pressed to the increasing bulge of her belly. He'd spent so many hours marvelling as their baby grew inside her, and she had always been patient with him. She let him take a million pictures and ran her fingers through his hair when he pressed his ear to her belly to talk to their baby.

"It's been part of my identity for so long, you know?" he said to Alice. "These years I've been gone, I kept her in my heart. I talked about her so much in the clinic. My daughter who died. I never forgot."

Never, except during drug-induced hazes when he forgot his own name, did he forget he had a baby. He'd carried the guilt and grief of her death with him for three years.

"Jasper, I can't even imagine."

He pressed the heel of his palm into his eyes and dug hard. "It's just… When she was dead, she was mine. And I wouldn't trade it. Of course I wouldn't trade it. She's alive and beautiful and happy."

"But when she was dead, no one could take her away from you?"

His breath left him in a huff. "Yeah." The word was small and broken. He closed his eyes against the sting of tears and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn't want to cry. He didn't deserve to feel so sorry for himself.

"The things you can change," Alice said reminding Jasper of the serenity prayer.

Alice knew damn well he didn't like the prayer. No god was going to grant him the serenity; he was going to have to find it for himself. The effect was the same, though. There were things he couldn't change, and the consequences of his actions were among them. He'd thought he was at least mentally prepared for what the fallout of his coming home would be, but the reality of it was so much more than he could bear.

"One step at a time. There's plenty you _can _do."

Alice was right, of course. Even if Edward hadn't taken his place as Kaylee's father, there would have been steps to take. One way or another, he had to get back on his feet, and that journey in and of itself wasn't going to be easy.

"Yeah. I'm um…" He tried to think around the overwhelming sensation that came over him whenever he thought of everything he had to do. "Tomorrow. Mom's taking some time off work to help me get whatever's left of my finances in order."

Jasper may have been a drug addict, but before the accident, he'd been a high functioning one. He had a BFA in Photomedia and a Master's in Art History. He'd made a decent amount of money as a staff photographer for the Seattle Times, and he'd taken side gigs here and there. He hadn't been hurting. It had taken him the better part of a year after he went off the deep end to run through his savings.

"I need to see if I can get my bank account reopened. If I have any kind of credit left at all."

"Sounds like a good time."

"Yeah." The tension behind Jasper's eyes and the grip around his lungs were beginning to ease. "Mom wants to pay for my counseling."

The whole twelve-step program wasn't the only game in town, and it had proved not to be a good fit for Jasper. He found one-on-one counseling to be much more effective.

"That's a good thing."

Jasper grumbled. "I don't want my parents to have to pay for anything like that. It's bad enough I have nothing left to give them now."

"That will change. You're going to look for a job, right?"

"Of course, but that's exactly what I mean. I can wait to get counseling until after I have a job of my own to pay for it."

"Jasper."

"I've been okay these last few months without it."

"You are in an intensely stressful situation right now, Jay, and that's not going to change any time soon. You need more support than your parents can give you, especially because they're part of your stress."

"I have you."

"Yes, of course. You always have me, but I'm here. Let your parents help you with counseling. If not that, I know you hate those NA meetings, but it might help to find a proper sponsor. Someone who's actually close by."

"I know. You're right. I know. I just hate this. I already owe you so much. I don't want to owe them too."

"We've talked about this. Right now, you have to think about what's best for you as much as you can. No one else is responsible for that. I know you feel you owe me something. The best way you can pay me back is not to fail at this. I'll bet your parents feel the same way. Let your mother help you. Take a break when you can get it, because you know damn well you're not going to get many."

Jasper thought of dinner and the hard look on Edward's face.

"_You don't get to sit here all pathetic and pretend you're sorry."_

"You're right about that," Jasper said to Alice.

_**~0~**_

That Monday, the third full day he'd been home, Jasper finally fell asleep. It was as though he hadn't slept in years. He slept right through the morning. When he woke to the low light of late afternoon, he was still tired. Tired and confused.

"Oh, hell," he muttered as he tried to disentangle himself from the cocoon of blankets. He rubbed his temples and tried to shake off the lethargy of his limbs.

The house was quiet when he emerged from his room, but he found his mother easily in her office. He wondered if she had any idea how grateful he was at the way a grin lit her face when she turned to see him in the doorway. She stood and wrapped her arms around him. Jasper leaned his forehead on her shoulder and let himself revel in the fact he could hug his mother again.

It had been a very lonely three years for him.

"You let me sleep," he said when he could finally convince himself to let her go.

"Sweetheart, you were dead on your feet." She rubbed his back and peered up at him. "How are you feeling? Are you hungry?"

He nodded and followed obediently after Esme as she went to the kitchen to make him a grilled cheese. He tried to help, but she pushed him gently down on the kitchen stool. "You're so skinny. Let me take care of you," she said.

Jasper sat and let her fuss. If she'd seen what he looked like a year and some months before, she would have been horrified. When he woke up in the hospital after being stabbed, he'd been skeletally thin. He'd filled out quite a bit since then.

"I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't mean to waste your time today."

"I always have plenty of work to keep me busy."

Jasper ran his hand through his hair, irritated at himself. "Still, I'm not trying to be lazy. I wanted to get a few things done today."

Esme smiled and reached out to touch his cheek. "It'll wait just one more day." She went back to chopping chunks of cheese. "Anyhow, you're awake just in time to help me go shopping. I need to pick up a few things for dinner tonight."

"Oh, Mom. You don't have to cook. We could order pizza."

She eyed him. "I want to cook. You still like my stroganoff, don't you?"

He laughed. "In the clinic, they had this god awful stroganoff. It was clumpy and gray and gross. I missed you."

"I would have been there, you know. In a heartbeat I would have been there."

Jasper was quiet. He wanted to say he knew that, but he hadn't. He'd been so plagued by guilt and doubt. In the clinic, he'd occasionally awoken from nightmares where his family slammed the door in his face and left him out to die in the freezing cold.

Esme exhaled in a quick gust. Jasper saw her eyes were glassy before she turned to the stove. "It's Edward's favorite, too, remember? It can't hurt."

Thinking of his youngest brother, Jasper sighed. "No. It can't hurt."

_**~0~**_

Emmett arrived with Edward and Bella. Rosalie, still not in the mood to see Jasper, stayed home with the kids including Kaylee. Jasper did his best to hide his disappointment, but he couldn't say he was surprised. At least Edward and Bella both seemed calmer tonight. Tense but calm.

"Ground rule," Bella said. She looked him in the eyes, her gaze steady.

"Okay," Jasper said.

"I don't want you to talk about Kaylee tonight. I know you have to have questions, but I can't hear them. Not yet. I want to listen to you. I know that's probably not fair, but you wanted to talk before you knew she was alive again, right?"

Jasper held his hands out in a placating motion. "I get it, Boo."

The old endearment fell off his tongue without forethought, and he wished he could take it back instantly. Edward's features twisted, and he stepped forward, his stance threatening. "You have no right."

"It slipped out. I'm sorry."

"Is this a game to you?"

Jasper narrowed his eyes at his brother. "What are you talking about? It was a slip of the tongue."

"How convenient."

"Actually, seeing as I wasn't trying to set you off, it's not really convenient at all. Is that what's driving you so crazy about me? You hate any reminder that I was ever with Bella? Well, I can't fucking erase that, and I wouldn't want to. I regret a lot of things I've done. I'm sorry about all this hurt, but I don't regret being with Bella. I can't."

"Oh, that's great. You-"

Sick to death of his brother's anger, however well deserved, Jasper drew himself up to his full height. "What do you want from me, Edward? I can't undo my existence. Only an idiot would promise that, so what do you want from me? You want to make it clear what a piece of shit I am, well guess what? I already know that. There's not a damn thing you can say to me I haven't already said to myself a thousand times over. I know. I get it. I fucked up.

"And I'm sorry that I'm how you met your wife, but honestly, look at the trade-off there. Bella looks at you in a way no one has ever looked at me. You're twenty-four years old, and you have everything a man could want. You have a home, a family, a good job."

"I worked hard for what I have."

"I never said you didn't. I just said you have it. You have an enviable life, and what do I have, huh? I'm thirty-one, and I have nothing to show for my life except scars and track marks."

By then, Jasper's shoulders had begun to sag again. He was so tired. He sighed as he looked his brother in the eyes. "Look, you have plenty to be pissed about. I get that. But don't you think that maybe you could at least get past the fact your wife was my girlfriend? Give me that one small thing?"

Edward glared, his shoulders heaving, for several long, tense seconds, but he finally jerked his head in a nod. He let Bella pull him back to her side.

Esme let out a shaky breath. "Okay. Maybe we can eat now?"

Jasper, still tense, nearly jumped out of his skin when Emmett clamped a hand on his shoulder. "Come on. We'll set the table."

It was only Emmett's hand guiding him that got Jasper's feet to move again. He shuffled forward and tried to reorder his chaotic thoughts. He couldn't make them gel, couldn't think around the too-quick beat of his heart and the tremble of his limbs.

"Are you okay?" Emmett asked when he had pushed Jasper gently against the furthest wall.

Jasper's answering laugh was weak. "You don't have to do that."

"Do what?"

"Be nice to me."

"You're right, I don't have to do it."

Jasper closed his eyes and breathed in deep a few times. "So why are you? Aren't you angry too?"

"Do you want me to be?"

Jasper tilted his head up and opened his eyes to stare at the ceiling. "I just want the other foot to fall. Edward hates me. Bella… what I see in her eyes is half anger and half pity. Mom and Dad don't trust me as far as they could throw me. They always seem surprised when I'm still here. Dad keeps staring right in my eyes. I think he's trying to figure out if I'm high at any given moment." He huffed. "I guess I'm just waiting for you to do whatever it is you're going to do."

Emmett was uncharacteristically quiet for long enough that Jasper almost pushed off the wall to end the awkward moment they were caught in. "I remember the way Mom cried when she accepted you weren't going to come home. I wanted to kick your ass. Thinking about it, sometimes I still do. But someone beat me to it, so what's the point?

"The thing is, Jazz, your mistakes aren't all of who you are. We were giggling kids and dumbshit teenagers together, you know? It just seems stupid to me to forget all the good things because you did a few really bad things. Fuck it up again and I'll kick your ass. Until then… I don't know. It seems like you have enough on your plate without worrying about me getting pissed. Mostly I figure I'll just have to sit and wait to see if my brother really is back, because I missed you. "

Jasper didn't say anything. Gratefulness always brought confusion with it. He was so utterly thankful for Emmett's easy acceptance he could have wept, but he wasn't sure he believed it. He was too scared to believe it. Whether he deserved it or not, if he believed Emmett was telling the truth, it would kill him to be faced later with his derision.

Emmett bumped his shoulder. "Come on. Let's set the table."

That Jasper could do.

_**~0~**_

Dinner was amazing. More than that, it brought back so many happy memories, Jasper could hardly breathe. He couldn't eat it. Even if the nostalgia wasn't choking him, his churning stomach made it impossible to eat more than a bite or two.

He wrung his hands, digging the pad of his thumb into his palm, trying to find calm. His family was ready to listen even if he wasn't ready to talk.

"I, um…" He took a deep breath. "When I left the hospital… I knew it was a fucked up thing to do. I knew it. I thought of each of you. I'm not sure if that's any comfort at all. It's like… there was this voice in my head telling me the right thing to do. It said, turn around. Your girlfriend needs you. Your mom and dad…" His throat got too tight, and he looked up at his parents. It was hard to lift his head as heavy as he felt with guilt. "I saw your faces in my mind, your disappointment. I couldn't… The voice kept telling me to go back, but my body kept moving further and further away. Like… instinct. I couldn't have stopped my feet if I wanted to, and I…" He hung his head.

"You didn't want to," Bella said.

Jasper shook his head. "I wanted to. I was always serious when I told you I was going to be better. But the voice telling me the right thing to do had the volume turned all the way down, and the voices that wanted… you know, the drugs, they were shouting. It's a need. It's so much stronger than anything else I've ever experienced. It gets to the point you can't think around it. There's nothing but…" He closed his eyes. "It doesn't matter. That part… It just doesn't matter."

He shifted in his seat and continued, staring studiously down at the table. "Anyway. After I, um… After I woke up after I left the hospital, everything was different. I got the hell out of Dodge because if I didn't, I would have come back to you all, but I knew I was useless the way I was. I knew I could only hurt you more. So I got on a bus. And then another bus. Little by little, everything fell away. I took little odd jobs here and there at first. I stayed in hotels. Then I just stopped. It didn't matter to me anymore if I had a bed or if I was warm. Money didn't matter. The things I did for my next hit…"

He stopped for a second and had to swallow sporadically to get the lump in his throat down. He squeezed his hands so his nails dug into his palms. "I missed you all so much. That's when I took the pictures, when it got so bad even the drugs couldn't take away that feeling. When I wanted to be good enough.

"Then, about a year and a couple months ago, I woke up in the hospital. I was detoxed because I'd been out for awhile." There was a lot he was leaving out. He wanted to tell them about Alice, but it wasn't the time. "I've been clean since then. Working on getting better. Being better."

"And now you think you're good enough?" Edward's voice was hard, but not quite as venomous as it had been.

"No," Jasper said. "But I want to get there. I think I can get there now. I know I need to prove it. I don't expect anyone to believe I'm going to make good on my promises. But I had a plan. I wanted to come home, get a job. I wanted to work on being a good son, a good brother." He cleared his throat and glanced at Emmett, purposefully not looking at Edward and Bella. "I want to be a good uncle if you'll let me. I know it will take time…"

Carlisle clapped his shoulder. "We have time."

An hour or so later, Jasper was beyond exhausted. But when Bella reached out to give his hand a brief squeeze, he couldn't help himself.

"I know you ask me not to… Can I ask just one question tonight? Only one."

Bella looked over her shoulder. Edward was still talking to Carlisle and Esme. "Okay," she said, though she seemed apprehensive about the idea.

"I'm not… I'm not upset, okay? I know I have no right to be angry. I just want to know."

Bella crossed her arms and looked at him, waiting for his question.

"Kaylee… We had a name picked out." Madelyn Rose Whitlock had been the name in Jasper's head for three years. "I thought you loved her name. Why did you change it?"

"Oh." She looked away from him but not fast enough that he missed the pain that flitted across her features. "I didn't sign the birth certificate for a few days. There was a lot going on, and I hated that I had to put your name on it. I couldn't think about calling her the name we chose together, not when you'd abandoned her.

"I told Edward what I wanted for her. That I wanted her to be happy despite the fact her father had run out on her. I hoped she was always happy and smart. Edward said it sounded like Kaylee. You know, from _Firefly_?"

Jasper managed a tight nod to acknowledge he understood the reference. It wasn't easy to hear the things she was saying, to face what he'd done.

"Kaylee just fit her."

He nodded, looking down at his shoes. "Yeah. It does. It sounds happy."

"Jasper," she said after a moment.

He looked up.

"Her middle name is Madelyn."

It was well after Edward, Bella, and Emmett had left that Jasper realized the significance. As angry as she'd been, Bella had given their daughter one tie back to him.

* * *

**A/N: SO! That happened with minimal bloodshed.**

**Many thanks to barburella and jessypt. **

**How are we feeling now, folks?**


	8. How Did We Get Here

**A/N: Disclaimer here, I am not a doctor. I'm basing Bella's injuries on a guy who used to have physical therapy with my mother. I don't know the intimate details of his injuries. I'm just mimicking them. It was many a year ago, so it might be quite possible for Bella to have healed differently now. I apologize for my ignorance. The body is a strange, strange place.**

**Oh, also. Last chapter, I should have said Edward was twenty-five years old. He's twenty-five, Bella is about to turn twenty-four, Jasper is thirty-one.**

* * *

_**~Three Years Ago, Two Weeks Post-Accident~**_

_It was only a matter of happenstance that Edward was with Bella so often. His parents both worked. They'd offered to take time off, but Carlisle worked at the hospital anyway, and with Jasper gone, Esme needed the distraction of her job. Emmett and Rosalie worked and had Henry to take care of. Bella's other friends were all young and too far removed to understand the enormity of what she was going through. Edward was a fresh graduate looking for a job, so he had both the most time and the connection to Bella and Kaylee._

_The morning before Bella was released, Edward was there again. The orderlies let him push Bella's wheelchair to the NICU. Her silence weighed heavily on his heart. When her doctor told her she was ready to go home, she'd burst into tears. Glad as he was she felt better, he would have done anything to take that broken look off her face, even keep her cooped up in the hospital room she hated._

_Instead, as his steps echoed in the hospital hall, he kept up a constant stream of light conversation. She didn't respond, but she put her hand up behind her to squeeze his fingers. It was her silent acknowledgement she was listening. _

_They scrubbed in, and Edward stepped over to the incubator as the nurses helped Bella and her bulky cast get settled. He put his hand through the holes and ran his fingers along the baby's arm. When he reached her hand, her miniature fingers curled around his large one. "Hey, little face."_

_Kaylee squirmed and let out a little squawk. Edward grinned at her. "So impatient. Mommy's almost ready for you. Just one more minute."_

_The nurses glanced at him with indulgent expressions as they leaned in to scoop the baby out of her incubator. Edward sat back and watched them lay Kaylee in Bella's waiting arms, mindful of her various tubes and wires. She was so tiny to be so encumbered, but she was getting stronger every day._

_This was Edward's favorite part. There was a moment, after the nurses had finally stepped back, when it was just Bella and Kaylee. For the first time that day, Bella smiled. It was a peaceful smile, as though there had been a restlessness inside her, an ache that could only be soothed by the bitty baby she held against her chest. She closed her eyes a moment and dipped her head so her nose nuzzled the baby's head. She had one hand firm against Kaylee's back, the other playing with her little foot._

_Edward was quiet, content to watch for the time being. It should have been a heartbreaking sight, and in many ways, it was. Bella was so young. Most of her exposed skin was still scraped, bruised, and battered. Her leg was covered from her toes to above her knee in a cast that seemed far too big for her small body. Yet there she was, all the more gorgeous for her serene smile as she rocked her tiny daughter._

_All too soon, her smile wavered. Her shoulders began to shake and tears escaped her closed eyelids. "Bella?" he said, and he moved to sit in the chair by her side._

_She sniffled and opened her eyes. "I don't want to leave her," she whispered._

_He reached out and rested his hand on her good knee. "She's growing every day. It won't be long before you can bring her home."_

_She gave her head a minute shake and curled her fingers tighter around the baby. "It feels awful that I'll be sleeping in my bed tonight while she's here. That's not how it's supposed to be. She's supposed keep me up at all hours. I'm the one that's supposed to rock her to sleep, not a nurse."_

"_You weren't supposed to do that for another seven weeks. You'll get there."_

"_Right." Bitterness crept into her tone. She moved her fingertips along Kaylee's back. "How am I going to take care of her when I can't walk?" She pressed her lips together, breathing deep through her nose to calm herself. Her eyes were wide and scared as she looked at him. "How am I supposed to do any of this alone?"_

_Edward raised his hand to her cheek, brushing away her tears since her hands were otherwise occupied. "You're not alone. You're never going to be alone."_

_**~0~**_

_Though Carlisle and Esme had offered to let her stay with them, Bella much preferred her own house. Edward knew her well enough to understand she hated feeling like a burden, as ridiculous as the thought was to him. Still, Edward thought she might have said yes if it wasn't for the fact it was Jasper's room his parents offered._

_Edward had offered to stay with her, a move that had made his mother look at him with that pinched expression of concern. But as he laid it out point for point, Bella and his family had to agree he was the most logical choice. Much as she wanted to, she couldn't be alone, and even a home care nurse couldn't be with her all the time. Edward had the time, patience, and physical strength to help her. _

_Of course, the whole family was there. Carlisle and Esme made dinner. Emmett, Rosalie, and Henry did their best to make her smile despite her depression at having to leave her baby behind._

_It was barely eight when Bella's eyelids began to droop. The rest of the family took their leave. Esme fussed. She wanted to stay, but both Edward and Bella shooed her back home. As it was, Edward was going to be sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the nursery. There was no room for her. She and Rosalie promised to come back in the afternoon to help Bella bathe. _

_When they were gone, Edward went to put his arms around Bella. Startled, she pulled back. "What are you doing?"_

"_You said you're tired. Don't you want to go to bed?"_

_She blinked a few times and a light blush tinged her cheeks. "Oh. Yeah, but you don't have to carry me."_

_He pursed his lips and bit back his amused smile. "How do you think you're going to get up there?"_

_Bella frowned. Obviously, she hadn't thought of that. "I could sit on my butt and scoot up."_

"_Or you could let me carry you. That's what I'm here for. To help." He sat down next to her on the couch. "There's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's just me, Bella."_

"_I know. I just hate being so helpless."_

_He gave her hand a brief squeeze. "This part doesn't last forever."_

_She sighed. "Yeah." _

_Hesitantly, she looped her arms around his neck. Edward was careful as he got his arms around her, mindful of the bulky cast. "Sorry," he murmured at her quick intake of breath. He hated the idea of hurting her._

"_S'okay. The pain really isn't that bad anymore."_

_When they reached the top of the stairs Edward turned his head to look at her. Whatever he'd been about to say died on his lips. He couldn't help the way he felt about Bella, the way he'd always felt. He kept a tight hold on it, but once in a while, like right then as he found her face so close to his, it was all he could do to remind himself she wasn't his._

_He cleared his throat, but he didn't look away. "See?" he said as he continued down the hall to her room. "No big deal. I'm not even breathless."_

"_Show off." Her voice was soft, and she didn't look away either._

_By the time he laid her down on her bed, the moment was broken. Her eyes were clouded with the same sadness that had made her every movement slow and stooped since the day before. More than anything, Edward wished he could know what she was thinking. Rather than pry, he lapsed into silence as he helped her get comfortable and brought her meds and water to her nightstand. He perched on the edge of her bed. "Do you need anything else?"_

_She shook her head, mute once again._

"_Okay." He picked up her cell phone and showed it to her. "I put the walkie-talkie program on the home screen. If you need me, wake me up, okay?"_

_She nodded._

_He tapped her chin with his finger. "Bella. Promise me. Promise you'll wake me up."_

_Her eyes met his briefly. "Promise," she said._

_He lingered because it felt like there was more to say. He wished he could do more, wished he could do anything to make this whole crappy situation better. What could he say that hadn't already been said? Time was the only thing that would heal both her physical wounds and the ones his brother had left on her heart. So Edward only said goodnight as he got up._

"_Edward?" she said when he reached the door._

"_Yes?"_

_When he turned back, she wasn't looking at him. She was staring off at some fixed point in the distance, her eyes teary again. She swallowed several times, and when she finally spoke, her voice was thin. "Walking away from Kaylee was the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life." She looked up. "Do you think it was hard for him? Do you think he thinks about us at all?"_

_Edward's heart twisted and anger stoked in his gut. He didn't have to ask who she was talking about. He also knew he had no words to make this better. He could have cursed his brother six ways from Sunday, but that wasn't what she wanted to hear. He could have told her what he knew-that when Jasper ran out of the hospital, he thought for sure Kaylee was going to die- but he didn't know if that would make things better or worse._

_In the end, the only thing he could do was sit on the edge of her bed and wrap her up in a hug. He held her and rocked her until the grief let her go enough that she could sleep._

_**~Six Weeks After That~**_

"_Bella, if you bounce out of this chair, I'm not going to pick you up," Edward said as he pushed her wheelchair toward the hospital._

_Bella twisted around to make a face at him, and Esme clucked at his side. "Hush, Edward. Her baby is coming home." She patted Bella's shoulder. "I bet you feel like you could fly."_

"_I wish I could run," Bella said. Her leg was still casted, and it would be many months if not a year before she would be able to walk on it again._

"_You'll get there."_

_When they got inside the hospital, Bella was patient as she filled out the release forms and listened to the doctor's last instructions. She looked like a little girl trying to be attentive in class when the sun was shining outside. Her hands were on her lap, but her fingers twisted in and out of her shirt._

_Finally, finally, a nurse brought Kaylee out._

_The baby was just over five pounds now and healthy. After the initial scare, when her lungs were deciding whether or not they would work, she'd gained ounces and strength without further complication. To Edward's eyes, she was still far too small, but she had a bit of baby fat to her. He no longer worried merely touching her would break her. _

"_Look at you, baby bird." Bella arranged the blanket around Kaylee's face. The tiny girl fussed but quieted as Bella drew her nearer. "Say goodbye to all your friends, Kaylee. We're going home now."_

"_Bella. Smile," Edward said, brandishing a camera._

_Bella didn't protest. She looked up at him and grinned. It was a beautiful picture of a proud mommy holding a precious gift. Her eyes shone with tears, and her smile could have lit the whole world._

_**~0~**_

_That same day, Bella received her first photograph from Jasper. It was Edward who found it first. It was getting late, and the rest of the family was still crowded in Bella's small living room. It had been his habit since he'd begun living with Bella to sort her mail for her. Just one less thing for her to deal with._

_He recognized his brother's handwriting right away. His heart leapt into his throat. Anger and hope warred for their place as most prominent emotion. He opened the letter without thinking and a picture fell out. After he studied it a moment, Edward had to fight the urge not to crumple it in his fist._

_In the last eight weeks, though life had continued at its typical up and down pace, there was a hole none of them could ignore. For all intents and purposes, Esme and Carlisle had lost a son the day of the accident. Their mourning was awkward and quiet. Their worry was all the more profound because there was no closure, no sense of finality. Edward knew they had talked to the police, but little could be done about a grown man who didn't want to come home._

_In Emmett, Edward had seen the loss of his best friend. While Edward and Emmett had their own close relationship, it wasn't the same as what he'd shared with Jasper. Often, Emmett would seek Edward out, trying to fill the gap, trying to do things with his younger brother that he'd always done with his stepbrother. Though Emmett was an easygoing guy, Edward could often see when something he did was just a little bit off. Emmett missed Jasper._

_And then Bella. _

_Day to day, Edward and Bella had fallen into a sort of routine. He brought her breakfast in bed in the morning, and they ate together while watching TV or just talking. Before or at noon, Esme or Rosalie would show up to help Bella bathe and dress. The afternoon was spent at the hospital with Kaylee with the occasional visit to Bella's doctors thrown in. Evenings were spent with family and supportive friends. It was stressful, but it was a semblance of a normal life._

_Still, Jasper's presence lingered like dust on every surface. Often, when the nights grew quiet, Bella became sad and distant. Bella was under no delusion that she'd lost a great love, but it still hurt. Greater than that was the ache she felt for her daughter. _

"_We were arguing so much toward the end," she'd told him one day. "But not about her. Never about Kaylee. He put the crib together. He bought her so many things. He was stoked. I don't understand. I just don't understand."_

_All that day, Jasper's name hung in the air, though no one said it. He was supposed to be there to welcome his baby home. He was supposed to be the one hovering, watching as the baby was passed back and forth between everyone. _

_It had finally gotten to the point where Jasper's presence slipped away, when everyone, even Esme, was unabashedly happy. It wouldn't last, but no one was missing Jasper right at that moment, that evening. Yet here he was, inserting himself._

_Edward clenched his jaw. He was irritated at the relief he felt. His big brother was alive and that made him happy, but on the heels of that emotion was fury. He was once again left to be the bearer of bad news. His words would be the ones to hurt Bella, his mother, his family. _

"_Edward?"_

_Edward looked up to find his father in the doorway._

"_Where did you run off to__?__"_

_It was probably a cowardly thing to do, but Edward was glad to pawn off this task at least. He handed his father the envelope. Carlisle's breath caught. He shook the photo out and looked at it for a tense minute._

_The photo was black and white. The atmosphere was smokey. The picture focused on the singer. Just by looking at it, Edward could tell he was singing the blues. Jasper was good at what he did. Edward could see the sadness on the man's face, the way his gnarled fingers curled around the guitar. He could almost hear the mournful tone of his voice._

_His father looked up. "What does it mean?"_

_Edward's throat was tight. He spoke through gritted teeth. "It means he's sorry."_

_**~Five Months After the Accident~**_

"_Hey, Edward."_

"_Hi, Jake." Edward spared a smile for Bella's part-time nanny and then diverted his attention to the bundle he held. Kaylee squealed at him excitedly, and Edward pulled her out of Jake's arms and into his. "Hey, baby girl."_

"_I'm taking off. See you tomorrow," Jake said._

_Edward clapped the man on the shoulder and closed the door behind him. He kissed Kaylee's forehead. "Where's Mommy, hmm?"_

_He moved into the house and found Bella on the couch. That she was leaning back with her eyes closed was telling. Despite being, for the most part, wheelchair bound, she did her best to be active. It had been a chore to get her to accept Esme and Carlisle's help so she would have a nanny to help her while everyone else was at work. _

"_What's wrong?" he asked, though he had a pretty good idea._

_She blew out her breath and opened her eyes slowly. "Hey. How was work?"_

"_Same as it was yesterday." As he spoke, he untangled Kaylee's curious fingers from the pull strings of his jacket. "Talk to me."_

_Bella screwed up her lips and nose, but she acquiesced. She gestured at the leg she had propped up on a pillow. "Physical therapy wiped me out."_

_Edward got up and put Kaylee down on her playmat. He returned to Bella's side. "Can I sit?" he asked, nodding at the end of the couch. _

"_Sure." She winced when he lifted her leg enough so he could sit. He curled his hand up under her pant leg, massaging with a light touch. "Ugh. How can you stand to touch it like that?"_

_Edward clucked his disapproval at her words. She'd finally been released from the confines of her cast, but the damage was startling. Her leg was sickly. She'd called it a zombie leg-it more closely resembled a bleached grayish-green stick than a human leg. "It's not diseased, Bella."_

"_No." She glared as though she wanted to scold it. "It's just a useless, atrophied, malfuctioning piece of meat."_

_Edward studied her for a minute. He could have handed her platitudes, but he knew better. She was frustrated and in pain. He couldn't make it better, but he could distract her. "I know what we need." He stretched to retrieve the remote from the end table. "We need _Doctor Who_, the David Tennant era."_

_Bella rolled her head so she could look at him. A small smile played at her lips. "Rose or Donna?"_

"_Tough one." He tapped his lips. "Rose. Definitely Rose."_

"_Ah, now you're speaking my language."_

_**~Ten Months Post Accident~**_

_Edward had to laugh._

_Bella groaned. "This isn't funny."_

"_Oh, come on. It's adorable." He got up and put his arm around Bella's waist. She leaned on him, letting him take the bulk of her weight as she panted, exhausted from doing her exercise. "Kaylee. Tell Momma you're learning to walk like her."_

_Kaylee giggled and continued walking the back and forth path across the living room. She was in her rolling walker, imitating the way Bella walked with hers. "Vum, vum, vum," she babbled as she walked, mimicking the vroom noises Edward often made when he pushed her around. _

_Edward chuckled as he guided Bella down on the couch. __By the time__ she was settled, Kaylee was demanding, "Up, up, up," so Edward lifted her out of the walker. _

_When Edward sat down beside Bella, she'd caught her breath and pulled her textbooks over. She was managing a few classes that semester, and finals were coming up too quickly. "I need to study a bit, but I made a wicked good chicken piccata."_

"_Oh." Edward's mouth watered. Bella knew how much he loved her chicken piccata. "When did you have time to do that?"_

_She waggled her eyebrows at him playfully. "I'm sneaky like that. It's in the fridge. You just have to pop it in the oven for-"_

_They were interrupted by a commotion and Kaylee's sharp cry as she pulled a number of books off the coffee table. Edward was over at her side in a heartbeat, looking her over. She was intact, no bumps or cuts, so he pulled her into his arms. "Come here, sugar. It's okay. I'm here. Daddy's here."_

_When he heard Bella's gasp, he realized what he'd said. His stomach dropped down to his toes. The atmosphere became oppressively heavy. Edward busied himself wiping away Kaylee's tears and kissing her booboos better even though he was fairly certain she had only scared herself._

_It was time to face the music. He swallowed down the lump in his throat, shifted Kaylee to his hip, and went to sit beside Bella. "Bella… I'm so sorry. It just slipped out. I didn't mean-"_

_She put her finger to his lips, silencing him. Edward didn't know how to read the look on her face as she stared at him. She seemed conflicted. Her eyes were stormy. She took a shaky breath… _

_And then she kissed him. Edward was so startled, he didn't move. He couldn't think. When she pulled back, he only blinked at her. His mind couldn't process what had happened. Since he'd fallen for Bella long before Jasper left and Kaylee was born, Edward was used to tamping down his longing. The last ten months, being near her every day, had only made the yearning in his heart worse. But he knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Bella kissing him was a fantasy._

"_I…" She said. She looked away and ran a hand through her hair. "I'm sorry. It's just… When you said that… I've wanted…"_

_Edward reached out with his free hand and cupped her cheek. He pulled her to him and kissed her the way he'd wanted to since forever. She kissed him back, moving her lips with his and threading her fingers into his hair._

_It didn't last nearly long enough before they both pulled back. Her startled expression matched the emotions doing cartwheels in his belly. Almost in unison, they looked over at Kaylee. She had her head on Edward's shoulder and her fingers in her mouth. Her eyes were teary and her expression sullen. She seemed unaffected by their kiss._

_Edward looked back to Bella and they shared tentative smiles. Rather than speak, Edward stroked her cheek with his thumb. He dipped his head and kissed her again._

* * *

**A/N: Ahhh my girls are so great. Much heart to barburella, songster, and jessypt. And you, jfka06, are a pretty, pretty, benevolent princess. Thanks for indulging my impatience. **

**To the rest of you. We will be back to the present next update, and yes, we will meet Rosalie soon. I hope you enjoyed this little blast of the past.**


	9. Facebook Friends

**A/N: Hokay, couple quick notes here. To my dear anon reviewers. A little bit of advice. Don't assume. There are a metric shit ton of issues that have yet to be addressed, some of which I haven't even hinted at yet. Just wait to see how the story plays out, yeah?**

* * *

"Nothing says you're back from the dead like updating your Facebook page," Jasper muttered to himself. He hesitated with his finger over the upload button. It seemed only right to replace his profile picture first. He wasn't that guy anymore, the one with easy grin and the glint in his eyes.

His parents had insisted on buying him a smartphone since the phone he'd gotten from the shelter was unreliable at best. He'd protested until he realized they preferred him to be accessible. He'd spent his morning getting reacquainted with the fine art of the selfie.

What a difference three years made. Though he still looked like a young man, his face was much older, worn. It wasn't just the scars. He looked like a ghost, a shadow of a person. There was no life in his eyes. His mother had encouraged him to cut his hair, as though a trim could make him a different person.

Jasper pressed the upload button on his phone and turned to the laptop sitting in front of him on the table. His parents had kept his old laptop along with everything else of his. All of his belongings had been in boxes in the garage. Helping his mother go through them, he'd been too ashamed to look at her. He couldn't imagine how painful it must have been for her to pack his things in the first place.

Rubbing his eyes, Jasper got down to the second order of business: culling his friends list. This was part of his recovery he hadn't had to deal with. Those years he'd been a drifter, he'd had no steady friends. He rarely stayed in the same place long enough to learn anyone's name. He couldn't contact most the people he'd met even if he wanted to, and no part of him did.

Home was another story. Plenty of his old crowd had been enablers at best and fellow drug abusers at worst.

Many of his fellow addicts in the clinic had struggled with the idea of letting go of bad influences. It wasn't as simple as it sounded. People who had never experienced the disease of addiction judged drug abusers with a black and white view of the world. They were bad. Wrong. To them, they choices were easy. Don't do drugs. Don't hang out with people who do drugs. If only it were that simple.

An addict's friends were just like anyone else's. For many, their friends were the ones who had been there when no one else was. Like every other human being, drug abusers were nuanced, comprised of parts good, bad, and indifferent. It wasn't easy sacrificing long friendships even in favor of better health.

There, at least, Jasper was lucky. When he ran away from his life, he'd cut ties with everyone. Reestablishing ties with his family was a priority. He didn't have the time or the energy to think about maintaining old friendships, good or bad. With any luck, he could slip out of their lives entirely without them having been the wiser.

Jasper realized his mistake a minute too late. He should have gone on his deleting spree first, before he posted a new picture of himself. Before he knew it, his post had been liked and commented on by a handful of friends. Jasper shook his head hard. He'd been disconnected from the world for so long, he'd forgotten how instantaneous feedback could be on social networks.

Then, his Facebook messenger dinged. Jasper grimaced when he saw the name. Laurent Dumont. He was on the list of people Jasper wanted to delete. He was about to close his message straight away when the words on the screen registered.

_**Is this really you? I thought I was the only one of our crowd to survive.**_

Jasper stared at the words for well over a minute without moving. An uncomfortable rock settled in his gut. His fingers shook as he wrote back.

**I'm real. What do you mean? What happened to James and Victoria?**

Jasper tapped his fingertips on the table, waiting for Laurent's message to appear.

_**James overdosed two years ago. Victoria lost it after that. She committed suicide six months later.**_

"Christ." Jasper rubbed his eyes.

Once upon a time, they'd been four fucked up kids who found some solace in each other. Unlike James and Victoria, Jasper had a loving family, but still, not a one of them could understand some of the things he'd been through with his biological father. James's father had been just as big a dick if not more so. Victoria had been abused by both her parents. Like Jasper, Laurent had a support system at home, but seeing his mother die at the hands of an uncle had left him reeling. They were kindred spirits once upon a time.

**I don't even know what to say to that. I'm sorry.**

_**I am too. But nevermind that. Where the hell have you been? What happened to you?**_

Jasper scoffed. Again he wondered if he was doing the right thing. This was supposed to be one of the easiest things he had to do. But a little conversation had to be harmless, right? And now he wanted to know more about James and Victoria. The tightness in his throat told him he wasn't as detached as he'd thought.

**Long story really short? I went off the deep end, almost got myself stabbed to death, and I got clean.**

_**That's great. I mean, obviously not the stabbing to death part, the clean part. Me too. First you disappeared and we all thought you were dead. Then James died. I didn't want to be next.**_

And then a minute later:

_**Listen, man. I've got to make like a baby and head out, but we should meet to catch up. I'm happy you didn't get dead. You have no idea. My treat.**_

Jasper hesitated only a moment before he agreed. It seemed like a reasonably safe endeavor. Laurent had been a true friend-the best out of the trio-and if he was clean, it would be nice to have someone else to talk to. As Alice said, as much as his parents wanted to help, there was so much they could never understand.

When Laurent had logged off, Jasper sat back in his chair at his parents' kitchen table. He balled his hands in fists and rubbed his eyes hard. The ever-present tightness in his chest intensified and sharpened into grief. He'd been ready to walk away from his old friends for good, anything to keep his promise to his family, but that didn't mean he thought they were worthless. They'd been worth something to him, and he hadn't been there to save them the way he'd been saved. What made him worth more than they were?

It made him wonder - who else? James, Victoria, and Laurent were his oldest friends but not his only. What had happened to everyone else? How many others were gone?

Jasper pulled his laptop toward him and navigated to his profile. He intended to check his friends list one by one-anyway, he still needed to remove friends-but he was quickly distracted by his listed family members. It was a limited list. His mother, his father, brother Emmett. He was missing two siblings from the last time he'd seen his page. It was only to be expected, but it stung.

He threaded his fingers through his hair and tugged. He had to take a few deep breaths before Facebook came into focus again. By that time he was distracted from his original goal. He didn't even know what his family's life had looked like these last three years. Maybe it was better to start not with his friends but with them. He clicked on Emmett's profile.

For the first time since he'd logged back on Facebook, Jasper smiled. Short videos seemed to have taken over the world of social media in his absence. Emmett's feed was dotted with videos of his kids. Henry was so big, Jasper could hardly believe it was the same boy he'd known. He was still ever the ham, and though his physique already resembled his father's, at five, he seemed to be a fairly talented little pianist. Jasper wondered what Emmett, poor, tone deaf Emmett, thought about that.

And Vera. She was precious. There was a picture of her standing next to Rose looking the spitting image of her gorgeous mother. She was wearing a miniature version of the exact same mechanic's coveralls that Rose was and wielding a plastic purple version of the wrench her mother had.

Jasper's breath caught when he loaded up the next video and Vera appeared holding hands with a familiar, slightly older little girl. Kaylee flashed his grin at the camera and giggled with little girl pleasure. Edward came into the frame and plopped down on the grass behind them. "Kaylee, give your cousin a kiss?"

Kaylee was agreeable. She flung her arms around Vera, effectively knocking both toddlers to the ground. They giggled, and Kaylee pressed a wet smack to Vera's cheek.

Edward scooped Kaylee into his arms. "Now kisses for Daddy," he said and he peppered Kaylee's face with kisses while she laughed and screeched, "Daaaaaaaddddddddyyyyyyyy."

Ever a glutton for punishment, Jasper scrolled on. He found a video from Christmas Day. Emmett snuck into the room Edward and Bella were sharing in Carlisle and Esme's house. He crept in carefully so they didn't wake. "Awww," Emmett whispered to the camera. "How cute is this? Priceless."

Edward and Bella were spooning on the bed. Edward was the little spoon. Actually, Kaylee was the littlest spoon. She was tucked up against Edward's chest the way he was tucked against Bella. It was a pretty picture, and under other circumstances, Jasper would have wanted to do exactly what Emmett did: tease the hell out of his little brother. Emmett climbed right into bed with them, jostling them awake as he tried to spoon with Bella. The camera shook. There was playful shouting and the feed cut off.

Jasper imagined he would have gotten a much different reception if he ever tried something like that.

If it were ever possible.

Would he ever get to the point where he could joke? He didn't know if he remembered how. He couldn't remember the last time he could think past the weight on his shoulders and the vice grip around his heart.

A key turning in the lock at the front door caught his attention, and Jasper looked up to see Carlisle come in the door. As usual, there was that smile of surprise on his stepfather's face when he saw Jasper still sitting there.

"How was your day?" Carlisle asked as he sat across from Jasper at the table.

"Fine. I took the bus to look for jobs. There's a gas station only a few stops up. The owner seemed to like me, so we'll see."

Carlisle seemed confused. "A gas station? Is that really the kind of job you want to look for?"

Jasper traced idle patterns against the tabletop. "I think my main goal right now is to be a contributing member of society. A gas station job isn't going to get me very far, but it'll pay for some so you aren't supporting me completely. And from there I'll figure out what I can do."

"You're a gifted photographer, Jasper. You had a great career."

"One that I can't just walk back into." He pressed his tongue to the roof of his mouth, trying not to be as frustrated as he was. "I burned a lot of bridges, and I have an inexplicable three year gap in employment. I could do freelance work, but that takes networking. I don't have a network."

"I'm sorry. I didn't think."

"Don't apologize. Starting over, right? It's, uh… I mean, I don't like the idea either, but until I figure out what the hell I'm doing with my life, I have to do something. I have to be able to show all of you I'm moving forward. Then maybe Edward will let me see my…" He swallowed hard and flexed his hands into fists. "Maybe Rosalie will be okay with me seeing Henry and meeting Vera."

"Jasper-"

Jasper shook his head, waving off whatever comfort Carlisle was about to offer. Sometimes his parents' compassion was more painful than any condemnation. "Hey, I have a question." His voice was tight, but he pressed on. He turned his laptop around to face Carlisle and pressed play on one of the videos he'd seen. "Who's this guy?"

The video was from Kaylee's third birthday party just a couple months before. It was a family affair, but the video showed a man Jasper had never seen. He was taller than Emmett but not quite as broad, yet he was sitting cross legged at a table obviously meant for tiny people. The table was bedecked with petit fours, tiny sandwiches, a tea kettle, and teacups. The stranger sat still as Kaylee adorned him with a pink boa.

"You're a pretty, pretty princess," Emmett teased the man who fixed him with a slightly exasperated look.

Kaylee glanced up from her work. "You have to have tea too, Unca Em. You can have the hat with the sparkles."

The stranger snickered, and the video cut off.

Carlisle chuckled. "That's Jacob Black. He's Kaylee's nanny."

"Bella was so pro-daycare," Jasper mused.

"Well, we hired Jacob when Edward had to go to work. Bella's recovery was very slow, and she couldn't care for an infant alone on crutches or in her wheelchair. He was half nurse to Bella and half nanny to Kaylee. After that, it just made sense to keep him on when Bella went back to school. He's part of the family."

Jasper hummed his acknowledgment, aching again for too many reasons. He hated that he'd left Bella to care for their daughter alone when she herself needed care. It should have been him there for both them. On top of that, even though it was no one's fault but his, he couldn't pretend it didn't hurt that an outsider had more of a place in his family than he did.

Carlisle cleared his throat. Jasper was afraid for a moment that he was going to ask what was wrong, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he changed the subject. "Your mother asked me to give you something. It's in my office if you'd like to take a look."

Curious, Jasper followed his stepfather to his office. Carlisle rummaged through a file drawer and proffered Jasper an official looking document. It took him a minute to realize what he was holding. It was Kaylee's birth certificate.

His hands shook as he looked over the information. Kaylee Madelyn Swan, two pounds, fifteen ounces. Fifteen and a half inches long. He traced the line with his name. Father: Jasper Whitlock.

"I can't keep this," he said, his voice thick with emotion. "Edward and Bella would kill me."

Carlisle hesitated a moment before he spoke. "You can keep it. That birth certificate is no longer valid."

"What does that mean?"

"Well, when Edward and Bella married, they had your parental rights terminated for reasons of abandonment. Edward adopted Kaylee. She's a Cullen now."

Jasper had to close his eyes against the ache at the center of his chest. His thoughts felt thick, and it was difficult to find the right words. Watching his mother fight his biological father for custody of him over and over again, Jasper knew way more than he wanted to about parental rights. The last beating he'd suffered at his father's hands had put Jasper in the hospital, and he'd never had to see the man again, even after he served his far too limited sentence. "That makes sense. But then why the hell is Edward always so defensive? If my rights have been terminated completely, I couldn't fight for her even if I wanted to."

Again Carlisle hesitated. "I'm telling you this because I think the least of what anyone deserves is honesty, no matter what the situation. I asked Edward the same question a couple days ago about why he was acting as though it was possible for you to be allowed visitation with Kaylee legally. He told me he consulted with our lawyers when he adopted Kaylee. He knew you thought she was dead. At the time, the lawyers told him there was a chance you could argue you wouldn't have abandoned her if you knew she was alive."

"I wouldn't have."

"Well, if a judge agreed with you, the adoption would be voided. You could seek visitation."

That admission hung in the air between them, a physical entity added to the weight bearing down on Jasper's chest. He turned away from Carlisle and looked out the window. It was hard to pin down what he was feeling. It was the most helpless kind of hope he'd ever experienced. Not that he wanted to do it, not that he could put his family through that, but that there was some option for him somewhere, a choice in his hands, simultaneously gave him a measure of peace and sent his thoughts reeling into chaos.

"Dad?" He had to swallow several times before he could continue. "If Bella had married someone else, if someone else was keeping my daughter away from me, what would you be telling me to do right now?"

Carlisle took a deep breath. "I think I would tell you regardless that you have a lot on your plate. There are things, in this case, more important to settle before you think about your place in Kaylee's life."

Jasper closed his eyes and tried to reorient his thoughts. Just because he was desperate to meet his daughter didn't mean he was ready.

"This is a complicated situation," Carlisle said. "No matter how this plays out, someday, Kaylee is going to know you're her biological father. You, Edward, and Bella will have to figure out how to navigate that scenario one way or another. I know it's been ugly between you and your brother, but I believe you can both come back from that with time and talking. I would hope you wouldn't consider making it uglier."

"I don't want to make it uglier," Jasper said, his voice low and tired.

"I know. One day at a time, and this will get easier for all of us. For now, you can start with seeing Rosalie."

At that, Jasper looked up.

"She's agreed to come to dinner tomorrow with Emmett, Edward, and Bella. They're going to leave the kids with Jacob for the time being."

"Edward and Rosalie at the same time." Jasper scrubbed a hand over his face. "That's going to be...interesting."

"One day at a time," Carlisle said again.

* * *

**A/N: Shout out to frostedglaze for putting the image of Jake at a tea party with a pink boa in my head.**

**Big thank you to everyone who reached out to me about banners. Foolish Hearts got a banner from ShadyPhee and New Girl got a banner from Fallingsnow Winter. Snapshots banner is being worked on by Beegurl, and Kris is a happy person.**

**Anyway, I meant to introduce Rosalie this chapter but as in real life, I got stuck on Facebook too long. Humph!**


	10. Family

**A/N: Beegurl made me a lovely, lovely, lovely banner. I love banners. *hugs all my banners* Such talented people in this fandom!**

* * *

Edward stared at his father, stunned. Betrayal hit him like a sucker punch to the gut. Fear sent chill down his spine and fury curled his hands into fists. For long seconds, he wasn't sure how he was going to react. The ache at the center of his chest made him want to cry, as childish as that was, but here was his father, the man he trusted more than anyone in the world aside from his wife, confessing that he'd told Jasper the one thing Edward didn't want him to know. "Are you insane? Have you utterly lost your mind?"

Carlisle narrowed his eyes at his son. "I realize you're upset, but it's not necessary to be rude."

"No, you're right. It's not. But you're going to tell me it was necessary to tell Jasper how to get to _my _daughter?"

"Edward-"

"I asked you once whose side you would choose if it came to a fight. I suppose I have my answer now."

Carlisle flinched backward as though Edward had struck him. He swallowed audibly before he spoke. "I'm not taking anyone's side. There are no sides for me to take. Jasper isn't fighting for Kaylee, Edward. My son asked me a question, and I didn't lie to him. I didn't lie to him anymore than I'm lying to you now."

Edward clenched his jaw, trying to think past the panic and anger. He didn't know how to define what was fair in this situation. He wasn't an idiot. He knew the awkward position his parents were in. They wanted to give Jasper their full support while Edward fought that idea tooth and nail. He huffed. "If he isn't fighting for Kaylee, why was he asking those kinds of questions?"

"He wasn't."

"Then you told him just for shits and giggles?"

"_No._ That's not how it happened. I never expected him to ask that particular question. Of course I didn't. I wouldn't have invited that conversation out of the blue."

"Then how did it come up?"

At that, Carlisle at least had the decency to look abashed. "I gave him Kaylee's original birth certificate. It was your mother's idea, and I agreed. We thought he might like to have it."

"Why? It's none of his business, Dad."

His father fixed him with a look that was a mixture of patience tinged around the edges with frustration. "I know you don't want to hear this, but I worry for your brother. On top of struggling with his addiction, I think he's heading into a very deep depression."

"And is that anyone's fault but his own?"

Carlisle pressed his lips together. The expression on his face was torn but contemplative, as though he were trying very hard to find the right words. "Everyone makes mistakes, and I believe absolutely we should face the consequences of those mistakes, but I also believe even the worst of us deserves respect and compassion.

"Addiction is an illness, not a choice. It's a mental illness. Your brother was very, very sick when he ran out on Kaylee and Bella. The consequences of that one action, a decision he made under the influence of a severe mental illness, are far-reaching. He is fighting so hard to come back from that, to take his life back and be the man he was meant to be had illness not taken hold of him. He's drowning, and I'm terrified he'll give up. Your mother and I wanted to give him something. Kaylee's birth certificate is a token - a physical thing he can hold in his hands that represents her. Because he does love her, Edward. You're her father in every way that counts, but she's still his daughter. He still aches for her every day. I see it, and that's a pain I know too well-to know your child is out there and you can't hold them, you can't help them. To know they don't belong to you."

"You of all people should understand why I don't want him anywhere near her. I remember how hard it was for you to send Jasper to his father."

Carlisle tilted his head. "Is that what you're worried about? Jasper isn't Charles."

"No. He's a drug addict with abuse in his past. Exactly the kind of person you want raising a child."

"Okay. Let's think about the absolute worst case scenario here. If, _if, _he chose to challenge your adoption, it would be a long time before he could do that. I will promise you I won't help him. If he chose to take action against you, our lawyers would be at your disposal, not his, and they're damn good lawyers. I think he might have secured a job at a gas station. Do you really think he'll have the means anytime soon?"

When Edward didn't answer, Carlisle continued, "And in the eventuality he raised the the money he needed and was able to convince a judge to overturn Kaylee's adoption, it still doesn't mean he gets custody of her. It would be years before he had any kind of significant custody, and you're married to Bella. He will _never _have full custody of Kaylee. No one can take her away from you_._ Tell me, Edward, what is it you think you stand to lose even in the very worst case?

"I told Jasper the truth about why you were so defensive. That's all. He's trying to wrap his head around how much pain he's caused. I really don't think he's interested in making things worse."

Edward pinched the bridge of his nose and breathed in deep. Carlisle touched his shoulder and squeezed when Edward didn't pull away. "What would you say if Jasper wasn't your son? If it was a stranger who'd abandoned my wife and daughter? If the stranger who hurt them wanted back in their lives, what would you be telling me to do?"

To his surprise, Carlisle gave a humorless laugh. "Jasper asked me almost the exact question." He shook his head. "I don't know, Edward. All my life I've tried my hardest not to judge anyone. It only takes living your own life to understand how easy it is to make the wrong choice, to hurt someone, to do something irrevocable. I believe in second chances. A marker of being human is the ability to evolve, to change, and I believe people can and often do change for the better. I believe in forgiveness. But like most things, all of those concepts are all but impossible when it's personal, and I understand that too."

Carlisle tapped a framed version of the Serenity Prayer Bella had hung there years before, when her father was trying desperately to save himself from his demons. "At the end of the day, Jasper is my son. He's your brother." His expression softened. "And he's Kaylee's father. These are things neither you nor I can change. I'm doing my best. I don't know how you want this all to end, but I'd like for us to be a family again. All of us, including Jasper."

"Family." Edward looked down at his clenched fists. "I begged him to get help. Over and over again, I begged him. Bella begged him. How many times did he come home high as a kite? How many times did you have to watch _your _wife cry over him? That's how much he loved his family. I don't understand how you can forgive him for that."

"Because love isn't a magical state of being. Loving someone doesn't mean you don't hurt them. It doesn't mean you can magically overcome a deadly disease."

"Well, regardless. I can't tell you how I want this to end, but I can tell you this. I don't know if I can ever consider Jasper my family again."

Carlisle winced, but he nodded. "That's understandable. I'm not asking you to accept your brother." He tapped the prayer again. "What I am asking you to accept is while he may not be your family, he is mine."

_**~0~**_

"Hey, Uncle Edward. You want to do a duet?"

Edward, Bella, and Kaylee hadn't so much as walked in the door before Henry was calling his uncle over to the piano. Edward set Kaylee down and ruffled Henry's curly hair. "Not today, kiddo." If he played anything today, it would come out stormy.

Kaylee clambered up on the piano bench beside her cousin. "Look what I can do." She pushed herself up against Henry, getting in his space so she could reach the middle keys to plunk out Chopsticks.

Henry's expression was unimpressed. "That's great."

Ignoring or oblivious to Henry's flat tone, Kaylee beamed at him. "Daddy taught me on our keyboard. Daddy says when we get a big house, we'll get a piano like yours or more bigger."

"Well, if you have your own piano, you can practice like me. Here. I'll teach you something, and we can play together."

Bella came to lean against Edward. She threaded their fingers together and looked up at him, kissing the underside of his chin as they watched the kids for a minute. Henry had an incredible amount of patience when it came to music. Edward nuzzled his wife's hair with the tip of his nose, enjoying the moment of peace.

Rosalie came in then with Vera on her hip and Jacob at her side. The little girl looked the picture of misery. She rested her head on Rosalie's shoulder, her arms around her mother's neck, clinging. Edward stepped forward to push a damp strand of hair away from her forehead and glanced up at Rosalie when the little girl didn't acknowledge him. "Is she sick?"

"She has a fever, but she'll be okay. Won't you, baby?" Rosalie kissed her daughter's forehead. Vera just grumbled in response. "Henry," Rosalie called to her son who turned around from his impromptu lesson. "Listen up, bud. I'm going to need you to be extra good and help Jacob out because he's going to have his hands full with this one."

"I can help too. I'm big. Look. I can tie my shoes." Kaylee kicked her legs in Rosalie's general direction.

"We can be good," Henry promised, smiling his winning grin.

"Yeah, I know that look, little man. I'm serious. Best behavior."

When she was sure of Henry's promise, Rosalie turned to the task of extricating herself from her toddler's death grip.

"Noooo," Vera whined, only clinging tighter. "Noooo, noooo."

There were tears, a lot of them, and by the time they all got out the door, Rosalie was not in a good mood.

Edward couldn't help his rush of childish, vindictive glee. His sister-in-law had, if anything, a temper that burned hotter than his. It was Rosalie he'd gone to when he needed to vent about Jasper. She was the one who understood his anger the most because he'd let her see it. From the moment Jasper ran out the door, Rosalie had been Edward's confidant. He had to be strong for Bella, Kaylee, and his parents. The whole situation had been way out of Emmett's ability to deal with. He didn't know what to do with something he couldn't fix with his hands or let roll off his back.

It wasn't that Edward thought his anger was useful; he simply wasn't done with it. He couldn't think about his brother without his blood boiling. Edward wanted to hurt Jasper, with his words and with his fists, he wanted to see him bloody and broken on the floor. Maybe more than anything, Edward hated his brother for making him feel such horrible things. He wasn't a violent person. He was a good son and a family man.

After the accident, when days turned into weeks and there was no doubt Jasper had abandoned all of them, Edward had destroyed his favorite photo of them in a fit of rage. In it, he was a toddler, maybe two, clutching the hands of each of his elder brothers. He looked up at them with a little brother's awe on his face.

Watching a hero fall was never a comfortable experience. Edward wasn't sure he'd ever forgiven Jasper for being someone he couldn't look up to.

Bella reached out to take his hand over the shifter. She didn't ask what he was thinking about; he supposed that was easy enough to tell. Instead, she stayed quiet as they drove and ran her thumb over his knuckles. She sighed when they pulled into the driveway. "Here goes nothing."

They walked up to the entryway hand in hand. Rose and Emmett pulled up right behind them, so they all got in the door around the same time. The atmosphere between the four of them was thick and oppressive. The weight of it doubled as they went in the house.

Jasper did the same thing he'd done with Edward and Bella. When they got in the door, he pulled himself to his feet looking for all the world like he was a beaten down dog. He came to stand in front of Rosalie. "Hi, Rose. You can-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence before Rosalie had slapped him across the face. Hard. Hard enough the sound made Edward jump even though he'd been expecting some kind of drama. Jasper's face snapped to the side and he gave a small cry of pain.

It wasn't as satisfying as Edward would have imagined. He wasn't the type of person who liked hitting from any person in any context except self-defense. He didn't excuse women because they were women, and he didn't hold with the old "boys will be boys" adage either. But as his father had said, principles were difficult to stick to when it was personal. Given the violent nature of his thoughts for his brother lately, he figured he would have enjoyed seeing him get hit, but he didn't. Jasper was already down so low, it was rather a redundant move.

The rest of the family converged, calling Rosalie's name or gasping. Rosalie held her hands up and out. "I'm done. That's it. I promise." She took a deliberate step backward.

"I'm fine," Jasper said as Esme tried to fuss over him. He was still holding his cheek, but he shrugged away from his mother's hand. "She's got as much a right as anybody to be pissed at me."

"You're damn right I do. And you want to know something? You got off light. One slap isn't enough. It's not nearly enough."

"Rose." Emmett put his hand on his wife's arm.

"No," Jasper said. He dropped his hand to his side. There was a bright red hand print across his cheek that, frankly, impressed Edward. Jasper took a deep breath and did his best to square his shoulders. "Let her say what she needs to say."

Rosalie didn't need any further prompting. She stepped into Jasper's personal space and even though he was taller than she was, she seemed to dwarf him. "It's the least of what you deserved for what you did to Kaylee alone. How fucking dare you? There's no circumstance I can understand running away from your child. That choice was taken away from me - to be able to carry my own children, to create a child so easily. Yet pissants like you can knock up every girl on the block without a second thought. It's a gift, Jasper. I don't care if she was stillborn, she'd have been a gift, and you spit on that without a second thought.

"And don't even get me started on just what kind of coward it takes to do what you did to Bella. She was twenty-one years old, Jasper, just a kid. It only makes it worse that you thought the baby died. Do you even realize just how shitty a person you have to be to do something like that? What, it wasn't enough that she lost her daughter and was, for all you knew, crippled, but you thought she should have to deal with her boyfriend dumping her all in the same day?"

Bella was squeezing Edward's hand so tightly it hurt, but he was fairly sure he was squeezing her hand just as much. There was a lump in his throat too painful to swallow down. He couldn't have spoke even if he wanted to. From the look on everyone else's faces, they were much in the same boat. His mother and father both looked torn. Emmett was staring at the ground. As could be expected, Jasper looked worst of all of them. He seemed to shrink with each word, and the color had long since drained from his face. Edward wouldn't have been surprised if his knees gave out.

Yet no one stopped Rosalie. Maybe it was because she had found the words to articulate everything the rest of them had been thinking, feeling, holding back because it was too much - too much anger and hurt and frustration and lost time, all of it so senseless.

"You left your baby brother to clean up your messes just like he usually did, or did you even notice that? Did you notice how many times Edward covered for you when you made a promise to your parents you didn't think twice about breaking? He could have stepped back and let you sabotage your own relationship with Bella, but despite how he felt about her, he always tried to help you fix it when you fucked things up with her. He listened to her vent and, rather than encourage her anger toward you, he defended you as best as he could. We all thought you were a good man, even if you had your problems, but obviously Edward turned out to be everything you couldn't. That's the one good thing that came out of the clusterfuck you left behind. Bella and Kaylee deserved so much better than you, and they got it. So help me God, if you try to fuck with that, I will end you myself."

"I wouldn't." Jasper's voice was a barely there rasp. "Christ, Rosalie. After everything, you think I even thought for a second I could just walk back into my old life?"

"Shut up. I'm not even nearly done with you. You've been going on and on about how you want us to be honest. You want us all to say what we've wanted to say. Well if they won't, I will.

"You _broke _my husband. Fucked up asshole that you were, you were the one he leaned on. Emmett was going out of his mind, he was so stressed out after you left. The family was falling apart and we were trying to have another baby. He needed you. He needed his best friend and you abandoned him too."

"Rose." Esme's tone was pained and sharp. "Maybe we can-"

"Let. Her. Speak," Jasper's gritted out. His breath was so labored, his shoulders rose and fell.

"Don't you speak to your mother like that," Rose snapped before Edward could. "Kaylee was better off without you. Bella got Edward out of the deal. What you've put Esme and Carlisle through is 100% crap.

"You know your mother blames herself for all of this? She always has. You can't imagine how many times she's apologized to Bella, Edward, all of us."

"Because it's my fault!" Esme put a hand over her mouth. Her eyes watered and her breath hitched. Carlisle folded her in his arms and almost everyone else started to protest.

"That's bullshit, Mom," Edward said. He dropped Bella's hand to go to his mother's side. "This is all him. All of it."

She shook her head slowly. "Not all of it." She raised her eyes to Edward and they were filled with pain and shame. "You don't understand the choices you make when you have no self-worth. You can't understand, and I'm so thankful for that."

Jasper took a shaky breath and took a careful step in Esme's direction, casting a wary look at Edward before he stopped. "They're right, Mom. How could any of this be your fault?"

Esme went to him and cupped his face in her hands. It struck Edward then, the way his brother's face registered shock, as though he hadn't been touched tenderly in so long, he'd forgotten what it felt like. She stroked his cheeks. "I grew up believing I was worthless. The things my parents said, what they did to me, it all reinforced that one fact."

She dropped her hands and wrapped them around herself. "When I met Charles I was so grateful for him. I couldn't understand how anyone could love me..." She stumbled over her words but recovered after a moment. "I thought he was a saint to put up with me, since I obviously caused him so much trouble."

Edward curled his hand into a fist, rage making his blood boil. He remembered when Jasper's father had put him in the hospital and Edward figured out what his mother's first husband had done to her.

She reached out to stroke Jasper's cheek again. "So you see, it is my fault at least partially. I didn't break the cycle in time for you. I made so many mistakes. I stayed too long. Then I was too much of a coward to report him, so I had no legal leg to stand on when he sought custody. You can't tell me if you'd grown up like Edward and Emmett, with a man who knew how to be a father and a mother who could recognize abuse, you'd be here right now."

Jasper opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Instead, he pulled his mother to him and rocked her in his arms. "It's not your fault," he said.

After a minute, Carlisle was able to get everyone moving into the dining room. No one even pretended to be hungry.

Jasper spoke first. He sounded tired, defeated. "There's not a lot I wouldn't do if it would make things right between us. I know that's going to take time and a lot of effort. I just…" He spread his hands out wide on the table, imploring. "You gotta tell me where to start. Anything. Something small. Just…" He gestured helplessly. "Anything."

Surprisingly, Rosalie gave a disgruntled groan before she said. "I've been thinking about this a lot. There's only one reason I agreed to see you today. I can't speak for Edward and Bella, but I'll be damned if I make your parents suffer for your mistakes. Carlisle's birthday is in another two weeks. You'll see my kids then. Whether or not I want you to talk to them or touch them is another story, but I won't take them away from their grandparents just because I don't want them anywhere near you."

Edward started. He'd been so wrapped up in all things Jasper, he hadn't even realized his father's birthday was drawing closer let alone the implications of what that meant for his family. He looked to Bella and saw the slight panic he felt written on her face.

Jasper glanced at them and quickly looked down at the table, but not before Edward saw the flash of hope on his features. He knew what this meant as well as Edward and Bella did. He didn't ask, though. Instead he raised his head to Rose and Emmett. "That's… yeah. That would be great. Anything you want. "

Bella rested her hand on Edward's knee and squeezed. They were going to have to make a decision on letting Jasper see Kaylee sooner rather than later.

* * *

**A/N: Many thanks to barburella, songster, and of course, jfka06.**

**Well… did that go better or worse than you expected?**


	11. Where Do I Belong

**A/N: FAQ- Are we gonna see more E/B stuff? **

**A- Of course. Next chapter should be another flashback chapter.**

**Oh, and someone asked about what Rosalie said about her not being able to have kids. To be clear, she was unable to carry her children herself and so her and Emmett's babies, while biologically theirs, were carried by a surrogate.**

* * *

Dawn hadn't yet broken when Jasper eased open the door of his parents' house, returning from his shift at the gas station. He had a brief flash of memory as he stood in the foyer.

In his late teens and early twenties...hell, right up into his late twenties, he remembered crawling back home at all hours of the night. As long as Jasper remembered, he lived a semi-nomadic life. First Charles had moved them around, then he spent his time being shipped back and forth between Charles and his mother. Then, when he was old enough to rebel, it was an endless stream of guest bedrooms, friends' couches, and yes, his bedroom in his parents' home.

Always when he walked in the door before, Jasper was hit with a sense of longing. He didn't know that he had ever considered this house his home. He didn't know that he had a home. Emmett, when he lived there, belonged to this house. Edward most definitely belonged here with his mother and father. But Jasper? There was always this sense that he didn't belong, didn't quite fit in. Whenever he came back to stay, for a night or a week or a month, there was that one moment when he walked in the door when he thought _maybe this time I'll stay for good_.

He never had before. That longing to stay, to belong, was always overpowered by the call of oblivion. Such was the life of an addict. Addiction wasn't a choice; it was a redefinition of normal.

When he was in the clinic, one of the days when a patient brought one of their family members to group to be confronted, one of his friends, Lucy, had been front and center with her teenage daughter Nettie.

"It's like… air. You know, it's like… when you can't have it, it's the same thing as not being able to breathe. Like your lungs are too small and you can't fill them. It starts to hurt, and you start to think you just can't take it. Like you're gonna die without it. And you can't think of nothing else. You can't concentrate at all. How could you concentrate when you can't breathe? Could you think of paying bills, or work if you couldn't breathe? Could you think-"

"Of your daughter." Nettie spat the words. "Yeah, Mom. I get it. The drugs were more important to you."

Lucy looked down, but she shook her head. "Not more important. Never more important. Just….necessary. I'm trying to tell you how it _feels. _I ain't excusing what I done. It's just...you don't think the same. A mom who couldn't breathe couldn't take care of a kid either. Not until she could breathe again. Not until she wasn't dying."

"You weren't dying when you weren't having it. You were dying more when you did get your hit."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know that. In your mind you know that, but that's not what it feels like. It feels like someone's got their hands around your neck and they're squeezing the life out of you. That's the truth. That was what was real to me. It's not an excuse. It's not. I know that. But please. Please can't you understand? It's real to me. It's as real as this chair I'm sitting in. This building. This city."

Jasper shook his head, willing the memory to fade. He understood the desperation in Lucy's voice only too well now. How often in the last few weeks had he wanted to drop to his knees, beg his brothers or Bella or Rosalie or his parents to understand. They didn't have to forgive him. He didn't expect forgiveness, but couldn't they understand? If he'd been in his right mind, he never would have chosen this, to hurt any of them the way he had, but his reality was warped. It took time to build enough strength that he could remember what the real world was supposed to look like even when he couldn't see it with his own eyes.

His need to leave was synonymous with his drug use. He'd never brought drugs into this house. Deep at the center of his being, he'd always known no matter how much he ached to belong, he never could. He couldn't bring his warped reality into this home, into this loving family.

Now the call to leave wasn't nearly as loud as it had been once. It still shouted in his ear from time to time, but he was resolute that he would never answer it again. Still, though he had no need to leave, he wasn't any closer to belonging. He was on an island tantalizingly close to the mainland. He could see it, but he was separate, forever adrift. In his worst moments, he wondered what he was even trying to do here. There was never a time he'd truly belonged to this family. Maybe once, a long time ago when they'd first run from his father, he belonged to his mother, with his mother, but he had never been part of this larger family. There was nothing for him to return to.

His despair was further compounded by the fact he didn't know much about who he was. Drugs and an addict's mentality had been part of his personality for so long, he didn't know much about himself outside that context. He didn't know how to fit in with his parents and Emmett, all of whom were trying so hard to accept him, when he didn't know who he was supposed to be.

Making the shift from addict to recovering addict was akin to restarting his life. He was starting from the beginning with his job, his family, his self. Except he wasn't a newborn. He was thirty-one, and he was supposed to have his shit together by this point.

The noise of running water broke Jasper's downward spiral. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. It took another minute or so before he could push up from the kitchen table where he'd sat. The weight on his shoulders seemed too heavy for him to move, but he did it anyway.

Maybe he had no idea where he fit in his new life or with his family, but he wasn't entirely useless. Carlisle started work at the hospital early, and since he was up and about around the time Jasper got home from the gas station, they'd developed a sort of routine. Jasper moved to the stove and started a kettle of tea. He sliced the lemons and retrieved the sugar pot from the counter and milk from the refrigerator.

By the time the kettle whistled, Carlisle was descending the stairs. He sat at the table, rubbing the last of sleep from his eyes as Jasper poured them both a cup of tea. "Thank you," Carlisle said. He began to pour sugar and milk into the cup. "How was your shift tonight?"

Jasper poured too much sugar into his tea and told Carlisle about his night.

This, he thought, was a start. He wasn't useless. He was working. He was as helpful as he could be with his parents. He enjoyed these early morning talks with his father. At noon, his mother would come home for lunch and he would enjoy a few quiet minutes with her. Emmett wanted to take him to a game - they'd enjoyed games together back in the day. He was going to have lunch with Laurent in a few days, hopefully gaining a friend who straddled his two worlds, his two selves. In another week and a day, he'd see his nephew again and meet his niece.

Progress was being made. It was an inch when he had thousands of miles to go, but it was progress. He could live with that.

Frankly, he didn't have another choice.

_**~0~**_

Jasper had Mondays and Wednesdays off. He woke on Wednesday just before noon, right before his mother came home from lunch. He had enough time to shower and make himself presentable.

He was glad he'd taken the extra time to be freshly shaven and clean. Esme didn't walk in the door alone. Bella walked in with her. Jasper's automatic reaction was to stand up straighter, like a soldier saluting his higher-ups. He hadn't seen or heard from either Edward or Bella in a week and a half. "Hey," he said, the picture of eloquence.

She looked green around the edges, and her arms were folded over her chest.

"Is, um…" Jasper struggled not to mimic her closed off body language. "Is everything okay?"

Bella huffed and fixed him with a hard look. "No. It's not. When I thought about you these last three years, it was almost unbearable. I was happy with Edward. I _am _happy with him, but always there was this part of me worried about you. I resent that, Jasper. I resent that you left us all to imagine what the hell happened to you."

Jasper stopped trying to resist crossing his arms. He shrank backward and sat heavily on the steps. Luckily, Bella didn't seem to want a response from him. She'd begun pacing, rambling as if she'd forgotten he was there at all.

"I wanted an answer. I wanted you to come home. I wanted to see you were safe. Not because I needed you, because I didn't, but I never hated you. I never wanted to see you dead or hurt. This… This is almost a be-careful-what-you-wish-for situation. I hoped and prayed you would come out of this okay. I never stopped hoping for that, but now you're here, and I don't know what to do." She wrung her hands, still not looking at him. "I'm never going to be ready for this."

"Ready for what?" The words came out strained. Jasper looked to his mother, but she was no help. Her face showed only concern, and she stood equidistant between both Jasper and Bella.

Bella stopped in her tracks. She closed her eyes tightly and took a deep breath before she turned to look at him. "I want to take you to meet Kaylee. Today. Right now. Before I change my mind."

Jasper's breath caught in his throat. He had to have heard wrong. But her expression and the way the color had drained from her face made him think he wasn't crazy.

"Rosalie was right," Bella continued, her voice shaky. "Kaylee knows it's her Grandpa's birthday this weekend. She's excited about it. It wouldn't be fair to either of them to keep her away because of you.

"But this happens on my terms."

"O- okay. Yeah. Anything."

"I want her to meet you because I don't want you to be a stranger at a family get-together. But you're not going to tell her anything besides your name." There was a threat to Bella's tone Jasper had never heard before. Her words weren't a request. She was demanding this of him.

Jasper swallowed hard and nodded. "Okay."

"You let her interact with you. If she doesn't touch you, you don't get to touch her. You get it?"

"Yes." Jasper could barely speak, his mouth was so dry. He licked his lips, more nervous than he'd ever been in his life. He could have thrown up, he was so scared and...

Excited. Hopeful.

They were dangerous emotions. He forced himself to look at Bella. "Does Edward know? Did he agree?"

Bella's face softened. "He knows. Of course he knows. You can't imagine how hard this decision was for both of us but Edward especially. He can't hold his temper yet, and he didn't want Kaylee to pick up on the fact he was upset. He's staying at work."

"Okay." Jasper clenched and relaxed his fists, trying to steady his breath. "Okay. I need just one second."

He stood on shaky legs and darted up the stairs. On his nightstand, beside the defunct birth certificate, was the small gift he'd purchased just a few days before. It wasn't much, just a colorful stuffed frog, but Esme had said Kaylee liked stuffed animals and he liked frogs. It was a start. A small token he'd purchased telling himself someday he would get to meet his daughter.

He wouldn't have dared dream it would be so soon. The last month and a half that he'd been home, he'd thought about her every day. The need to see her was almost unbearable. It was torture knowing she was so close, alive and thriving, yet barred from him. But now he wasn't ready. He was terrified she'd just _know _and would hate him on sight.

"Is this okay?" he asked, holding the toy out for Bella's inspection like he was the child needing parental approval. "I'm not trying to bribe her or anything. I didn't want to be completely empty handed."

Bella nodded. "It's fine."

The whole drive to Bella's house, Jasper couldn't sit still. He sat in the back seat, squirming and wiggling and generally trying not to have a heart attack. He didn't know if he was allowed to smile. He wanted to beam, but he was also scared out of his mind. If he and his mother were alone, he would have kept up a constant stream of what if's and maybe she would have had the right words to calm him. As it was, he stayed completely quiet, afraid Bella would change her mind and send him away again.

When they pulled into her driveway, Jasper broke into a cold sweat. He managed to get out of the car, but then he couldn't move. He stared at the house as if it was going to rear up and eat him any given moment.

Esme came around to his side of the car and took his hand. Jasper clung to his mother like he was a child instead of a full grown man and let her pull him forward.

Bella hadn't even put her key in the door before it came open. A man stood there, and Jasper had just enough time to recognize him as Kaylee's nanny, Jacob, before his eyes slid to the tiny girl he held in his arms.

Jasper stopped short, knocked instantly breathless at the sight of her. All the pictures, all the videos in the world couldn't compare to seeing his baby, his child with his own eyes. Her face lit up in a grin. "Mommy," she cried, pitching forward out of Jacob's arms. Bella caught her easily, and Kaylee flung her arms around her neck. "It's early, Mommy. You missed snack time, but maybe Jakey can make you something."

"Don't worry about me, little bird. I'm okay."

Jasper started when his view of Kaylee was obscured by a massive body. He blinked and gasped, realizing only then he hadn't taken a breath in a while. It took him another few seconds to realize he was being judged. Hard. He cleared his throat and offered his hand. "Jasper Whitlock."

Jacob looked at his hand as though it was dirty, but after an uncomfortable few seconds he took it. "Jacob Black."

As could be expected, Jacob squeezed Jasper's hand in the alpha-male grip of death. Jasper didn't try to outdo him, but he was careful not to react either. He knew a test when he saw one. The look on the other man's face was clear. He thought Jasper was scum, and if it was up to him, there was no way he was getting in this door.

After a moment, Jacob huffed and stepped back to Bella's side. He was like a watchdog, ready to jump in to protect his masters at a moment's notice.

"Mommy, did you bring a friend over to play?"

Jasper's heart skipped a beat. Kaylee was looking at him, her eyes curious but not at all wary. In fact, she was smiling. His smile. She looked so much like him, it was impossible for Jasper not to see it, to know at least in blood she was his. The piece of his heart, his soul, that she'd owned since the second he knew of her existence glowed bright and hot inside him. He sucked in a breath, choked by the enormity of the emotion that welled in him.

Bella sighed and kissed her forehead. "Yeah, baby, something like that. Let's go inside."

Again Esme had to tug Jasper's hand to get him to move. It was a surreal moment for him. He'd spent a lot of time in this house. He'd spent time with Bella, his head resting against her growing belly, telling his baby girl, this baby girl, all the things they would do together when she made her way out into the world.

Bella set Kaylee down in the living room, and the little girl ran straight to Jasper's feet. She craned her head, looking up at him, so completely fearless, Jasper was instantly charmed. "Hi hi! I'm Kaylee. Who are you?"

Jasper sunk down to his knees. His legs were too weak to hold him, and he wanted to be more on her level anyway. He had to swallow several times before he could speak. "My name's Jasper," he said, his voice a scratchy whisper.

She reached out and touched his scraggly hair. Self-conscious, Jasper wished he'd thought to get a haircut, but she only giggled. The sound made him want to smile. "Your hair is long."

"Yeah. Yeah, it is." He cleared his throat again. It was difficult to speak or even breathe around the lump. "I, umm… I have something for you. It's polite, you know, to bring something for the little lady of the house." His hand shook as he held the little frog he'd had in a death grip since he got out of the car.

Kaylee's eyes lit up. She snatched it from his hand and hugged it close to her. "Is it a boy or a girl froggy?" She studied it carefully. "I think it's a girl, but I can't tell."

"I, uh… I think you're right."

"What's her name?"

"Well, I'm not sure. We only just met, see."

Kaylee hummed and she put her lips to the frog's ear. "That's okay. We'll find you a good name." She petted the thing as though it were a dog and then she surprised the hell out of Jasper by throwing her arms around his neck, froggy and all. "Thanks."

Unsure of what he was doing, Jasper let his arms close around the tiny girl in a quick hug. "It… It's my pleasure, sugar."

All too soon she was backing out of his hug, onto the next thing. "Tha's funny. You called me sugar like my daddy. Do you know the sugar song too?"

"I can't say I do."

"That's okay. I can learn you it." She flopped down on the floor on her back. "It's like this." She began to sing in a child's warble, the words more spoken than melodic. "Sugar, sugar you're so sweet. All the sugar I could eat. I would even eat your feet. Rawr!" She made gobbling noises as she tried to pull her feet toward her mouth.

Jasper had to put a hand over his mouth. His eyes stung. He could almost see Edward leaning over her, his eyes proud and full of love like any good daddy's would be, singing a silly song to his daughter and pretending to eat her feet. Jasper took a shaky breath. He loved this little girl. The strength of the love he felt rocked him at the soul level. He loved her, but she called another man, his brother, Daddy.

Tears spilled over before he could stop them.

Kaylee's eyebrows knitted at the center as she looked up to him. She got to her feet, her little froggy secure in her arms and went to him. "Is you sad?"

Jasper wiped his sleeve across his eyes, sniffing hard. He put on a smile at the little girl. "No, I'm not sad, sugar."

She held her arms up, and Jasper knelt with one knee on the the ground, the other forming a seat which Kaylee climbed up on. She looked at him with concern and tilted her head up to press a wet smack of a kiss against his tear-streaked cheek. "My daddy kisses me like this when I cry. Don't be sad, Mister Man." She put one arm about his neck and pointed, froggy still in hand, at one of the scattered toys about. "You can play with my dolly, okay?"

"Thanks, Kaylee-girl." He ducked his head to bury his nose for a brief moment in her hair.

Bella stepped forward, reminding Jasper he wasn't alone. "Kaylee, why don't you go play with Jake? I need to talk to Jasper now." Her voice shook.

Kaylee frowned. "I want to play here."

"Kaylee, don't argue with me right now."

The little girl looked for a moment like she was going to start but Jacob swept in. He plucked Kaylee out of Jasper's arms and tossed her in the air so she giggled. "Come on, munchkin. How about I teach you a new game?"

Jasper watched them ascend the stairs, his chest hurting more with each beat of his aching heart. His eyes blurred, and he blinked tears away furiously because he could still see her. He didn't want to be robbed of one second. He would never get enough of seeing her there in front of him, living and breathing and smiling and sassy. But the second she was out of eyeshot, he slumped. It was all he could do to keep from breaking down.

He felt more than saw Bella come to stand in front of him. "She's so beautiful," he whispered. "She's amazing."

"Jasper… you can't." Bella's words were tight, strained, and Jasper was confused. Though he was shaking like a leaf he looked up at her, watching as fury and fear warred on her face. "You can't have her. She isn't yours. You have to understand, she-"

He held his hand up to stop her flow of words. He didn't think he could stand to hear them. "Please don't." He still couldn't find enough volume, and his words were barely a breath. "You don't… you don't have to say that."

"I do." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "I can't do this anymore, Jasper. I can't live wondering what you're going to do. Tell me now, because I can't take not knowing."

It was difficult to concentrate on Bella's words and what he should do. His head was a chaotic mess of up and down emotions. Joy, despair, pride, want. He didn't know where to settle. He stood on fawns legs and stared at Bella. She was never meant to be his; he knew that. But he'd cared for her, loved her, and they'd created a child together. Kaylee was his. He saw it in her face and felt it in his heart, and if things had gone another way, maybe he always would have had to share his daughter with Edward, but she would have been his. She was supposed to be his.

He took a deep breath and then another because the next words he was going to say were going to be the most difficult he would ever utter. It would kill him, but Bella deserved to hear him say it. When he spoke his tone was quiet, remarkably steady. "There is nothing, and I mean nothing, I want more in the world than to be able to say she's mine, but that's not fair. I know how unfair that is. She's so perfect, and I know I didn't have anything to do with that. You and Edward were here for her every minute, teaching her, loving her, while I was…" He swallowed hard and looked away for a moment. He didn't deserve his tears, and he wouldn't make Bella see them.

"I'm promising you right now, I will never fight you for her. I won't challenge the adoption. Ever. I know I'm not her father. I know. It's… It's more than I deserve, I know. I'd like… I'd like to be her uncle, but if you don't want me to be even that, I'll understand. It's up to you. It's completely up to you."

He walked away then. He had to. He had no more strength left. There was a weight on his shoulders and his knees were about to give out. When they did, he would be crushed flat. He felt it coming, and he didn't want Bella to have to deal with it. He went to the car, got in the passenger seat, and rested his forehead against the cold glass with his eyes closed.

Only a minute or so later, Esme got in the car. She was sniffling, but she didn't try to talk, and for that Jasper was grateful. His throat was too tight to speak, his lungs too tight to breathe. Tears burned, but he wouldn't allow them to overflow. Not yet. Not yet. For the too-short car-ride back to his parents' house, Jasper tried to keep his mind blank. He wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. His every damning thought was held behind a dam made of sticks, straining and cracking.

When they parked, Jasper trudged up the walk without looking back at his mother. He got as far as the foyer and couldn't move any further. That same sense of longing hit him, and it was the straw that broke the camel's back. He fell to his knees, his hands over his eyes, his shoulders shaking though he wasn't crying yet. Not yet.

His mother's soft touch only added to the intense pain. He hurt. He just hurt. It was an excruciating pain, and he didn't understand how his heart kept beating through it. His lungs burned. The air might as well have been lead. When Esme put her arms around him, he fell against her, letting her hold him.

"I'm so stupid, Mom. I'm so, so stupid."

She said nothing, but she rocked him, her fingers gentle in his hair.

His breath hitched and he babbled, the words nonsensical to his own ears. "How am I going to do this? How? I want her. I want her so much. I want to hold her and watch her grow. I want it all back, Mom. I want it back. All the years I missed. I want every day back.

"One day I'm going to have to look her in the eyes and tell her she could have been mine, but I was too stupid."

His voice cracked and he couldn't hold the tears back any longer. He broke down and cried inconsolably in his mother's arms.

* * *

**A/N: Um. Hi!**

**Many thanks to my beautiful girls, barburella, jfka06, songster, and jessypt.**

**How we doing out there?**


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